Patriotism my ass
Sorry it's been so long since an entry. Lots of work and reading and Christmas-ing to be done! Btw a late Merry Christmas and happy new year to all, and I hope you enjoy the entry and think for a few minutes, maybe write back. Yes I know it's long, but you shouldn't be at immediate risk of death, so deal with it! Haha
I’m very curious to understand something. I want to know, how do fighters, soldiers, warriors, whatever you want to call them, how do they do it? It’s not just that they’re killing another person, it’s that there is no difference between them. What divides east from west? An imaginary line that people put there! And we at random argue, fight, hate, and even kill over that? What makes someone an enemy? In the second world war the Russians and Americans were allies, and not long after they were engaged in a Cold War, pointing nuke missiles at each other, and the most ridiculous of all, the Space-Race. Here are the 2 economic superpowers of the world at the time, putting billions and billions of dollars into achieving the same goal. Why? So that one could piss the other off by saying “We did it first.” Then people, everyday people like you and I, get forced into a war. Allies and Enemies change as quickly and randomly as the direction of the wind, and friends and families are torn apart, even forced to kill each other sometimes. Civil wars are the most absurd. Countrymen against each other. Why do people do it? They are following a leader, doing what they are told. But their leader is chosen by people, like you, like me, like them. The leaders are chosen based on the values of people at the time, and as times change so do people, as do their values, so the only thing the leaders have in common is that they were chosen. And these soldiers follow the leader, no matter what. They don’t fight for a goal. They may say they fight for freedom, but what they are truly fighting for is a different way to be controlled. They fight for their country, for what it stands for, for the people who live there and love it. But The country, what it stands for, and the people change. 200 years ago Americans probably truly meant to fight for freedom and liberty and “Pursuit of Happiness,” now all they fight for is petroleum and a McDonalds in every neighbourhood. People make and loose friends, it’s a part of life. But when it happens with political powers, who have legions of unquestioning followers willing to fight, even to die, for what they are told, or when it causes thousands, if not millions of people, to turn against each other and in the end kill or be killed, there becomes no winning or losing. There is no victor and no defeated. There is simply the stronger survivor, and I ask you, what does it matter? The world could be whole as one if only we could agree that we are all different. Capitalism is a shitty cut throat system, Communism only works in theory, Monarchy is a genetic lottery, Anarchy would be no good because of human nature. There is no way that everything will work out perfectly, but as people we need to start to realize that the only thing that divides us is what we put into place. Religion and nationality and social status, all the things we fight over, are all human institutions. People just keep creating reasons to be different, and sometimes they expect others to follow suit. Convert or be killed. I will be the first to say No. I grew up in a capitalist society, a member of the upper-middle class. Well educated, cared for. But I believe in Communist theory, all people are equal and should be equally treated. There is enough in this world for everyone, so why is it that to be in the top 8% of most wealthy people in the world, you need only $1000 in the bank and $20 in your wallet? There’s an old saying, that something is only as good as the man who writes it. Well every person who writes a check to pay for something they don’t need, or who buys a replacement and simply discards the old, is trash. Anybody who goes out and buys new sheet and throws the old ones away is no good at all. Somewhere, probably even in your own damned city, there is someone slowly freezing, or a Homeless Mission that could use some more blankets, or even just a poor person who needs a patch for his clothes. And here you throw that sheet away. It’s sad and sickening. People do it all the time, especially with food. I know that I often end up throwing away food, and I hate it. At the very least we could at least compost it and used it to fertilize fields growing other food, rather than tossing it into landfills and dumps to rot away and become polluted with all the decomposing crap that’s already there. The world will never change, but that’s ok. “The world is not fucked up, just the people in it.” (SLC Punk) If people could just start to get a grip on the reality of things, maybe we could “unfuck” ourselves. I’m hoping that we can help. I don’t want to save the world. I personally think David Suzuki is mad for trying to achieve sustainability within a generation (http://www.davidsuzuki.org for more info). The world can’t be saved by one, or even a million people. But it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere sure as hell isn’t with me. I’ve done all I can and I’ve started nothing, I’m simply passing along what has been given to me and putting it to work. If more and more people do, then maybe we can save at least a community, from there a municipality, a city, a region, and so on. It will take decades, centuries even, to do. But we can’t get discouraged because it takes time. WE will never see it happen, but at least we can help it happen in the end. Does that not count for something? How many people need to die for nothing before everybody sees this?
I’m very curious to understand something. I want to know, how do fighters, soldiers, warriors, whatever you want to call them, how do they do it? It’s not just that they’re killing another person, it’s that there is no difference between them. What divides east from west? An imaginary line that people put there! And we at random argue, fight, hate, and even kill over that? What makes someone an enemy? In the second world war the Russians and Americans were allies, and not long after they were engaged in a Cold War, pointing nuke missiles at each other, and the most ridiculous of all, the Space-Race. Here are the 2 economic superpowers of the world at the time, putting billions and billions of dollars into achieving the same goal. Why? So that one could piss the other off by saying “We did it first.” Then people, everyday people like you and I, get forced into a war. Allies and Enemies change as quickly and randomly as the direction of the wind, and friends and families are torn apart, even forced to kill each other sometimes. Civil wars are the most absurd. Countrymen against each other. Why do people do it? They are following a leader, doing what they are told. But their leader is chosen by people, like you, like me, like them. The leaders are chosen based on the values of people at the time, and as times change so do people, as do their values, so the only thing the leaders have in common is that they were chosen. And these soldiers follow the leader, no matter what. They don’t fight for a goal. They may say they fight for freedom, but what they are truly fighting for is a different way to be controlled. They fight for their country, for what it stands for, for the people who live there and love it. But The country, what it stands for, and the people change. 200 years ago Americans probably truly meant to fight for freedom and liberty and “Pursuit of Happiness,” now all they fight for is petroleum and a McDonalds in every neighbourhood. People make and loose friends, it’s a part of life. But when it happens with political powers, who have legions of unquestioning followers willing to fight, even to die, for what they are told, or when it causes thousands, if not millions of people, to turn against each other and in the end kill or be killed, there becomes no winning or losing. There is no victor and no defeated. There is simply the stronger survivor, and I ask you, what does it matter? The world could be whole as one if only we could agree that we are all different. Capitalism is a shitty cut throat system, Communism only works in theory, Monarchy is a genetic lottery, Anarchy would be no good because of human nature. There is no way that everything will work out perfectly, but as people we need to start to realize that the only thing that divides us is what we put into place. Religion and nationality and social status, all the things we fight over, are all human institutions. People just keep creating reasons to be different, and sometimes they expect others to follow suit. Convert or be killed. I will be the first to say No. I grew up in a capitalist society, a member of the upper-middle class. Well educated, cared for. But I believe in Communist theory, all people are equal and should be equally treated. There is enough in this world for everyone, so why is it that to be in the top 8% of most wealthy people in the world, you need only $1000 in the bank and $20 in your wallet? There’s an old saying, that something is only as good as the man who writes it. Well every person who writes a check to pay for something they don’t need, or who buys a replacement and simply discards the old, is trash. Anybody who goes out and buys new sheet and throws the old ones away is no good at all. Somewhere, probably even in your own damned city, there is someone slowly freezing, or a Homeless Mission that could use some more blankets, or even just a poor person who needs a patch for his clothes. And here you throw that sheet away. It’s sad and sickening. People do it all the time, especially with food. I know that I often end up throwing away food, and I hate it. At the very least we could at least compost it and used it to fertilize fields growing other food, rather than tossing it into landfills and dumps to rot away and become polluted with all the decomposing crap that’s already there. The world will never change, but that’s ok. “The world is not fucked up, just the people in it.” (SLC Punk) If people could just start to get a grip on the reality of things, maybe we could “unfuck” ourselves. I’m hoping that we can help. I don’t want to save the world. I personally think David Suzuki is mad for trying to achieve sustainability within a generation (http://www.davidsuzuki.org for more info). The world can’t be saved by one, or even a million people. But it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere sure as hell isn’t with me. I’ve done all I can and I’ve started nothing, I’m simply passing along what has been given to me and putting it to work. If more and more people do, then maybe we can save at least a community, from there a municipality, a city, a region, and so on. It will take decades, centuries even, to do. But we can’t get discouraged because it takes time. WE will never see it happen, but at least we can help it happen in the end. Does that not count for something? How many people need to die for nothing before everybody sees this?