Key West The Newspaper

 

by Ray Jason…….

As the years thunder by, I pleasantly discover that my needs and desires keep decreasing. Health, Happiness, Friendship and Freedom are now the cardinal points on the compass of my life’s voyage.   Because today is my birthday, it is natural to ponder whether my Ship of Self is sailing smoothly; or whether it is struggling through troubled waters. Fortunately, the year astern of me has been splendid, and the days ahead look promising.

For me, one of the joys and challenges of each birthday is to revisit my core knowledge of the world. Being blessed with the philosopher’s curse of needing to understand the mystery of human existence, I use this annual milestone to reconsider “what I think I know.” My approach this year will be to focus on the multitude of infants who will be born today and thus share the same birth date as mine. What awaits them…???

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Unfortunately, I fear that they are not destined to experience lives that are rich in harmony and plenty. That is because the human power structures that rule the planet are intrinsically malevolent rather than benevolent. These systems are designed to allow those who are already in control, to expand and consolidate their influence.

A child born today arrives on an Earth whose creatures are suffering profoundly. In fact, even our planet’s vital bio-geo-physical structures are deeply compromised. Humanity is burdened by war, injustice, racial strife, poverty, starvation and disease. Tragically, these are all problems that are caused by people and they likewise could be cured by people, except that those who are the gatekeepers actually profit from this human carnage.

And what deepens the sadness of this condition, is the fact that during most of the journey of the human caravan these horrors were nonexistent.   For thousands of generations, people were not greedy, insensitive, ruthlessly competitive and violent. In other words, these behaviors are not part of our nature – they are acquired ways of dealing with each other and with our Mother Planet. But those who subtly control us have convinced us that such selfish, misguided and harmful conduct is just “the way people are.” But in fact it is the way the dominators are – the way the manipulators are.

Certainly tribal men and women had difficulties, but for the most part they were not caused by other humans. They were survival issues such as securing enough food, healing serious injuries and trying to understand and adapt to extreme weather events – floods, earthquakes, volcanoes. But their human interactions were far superior to the social blueprint that pervades the modern world. They were egalitarian societies that were not divided into a tiny ruling elite and a vast swarm of subjects. Women had equal status in the tribe. And the wealth of the clan was shared equally so that there were no haves and no have nots.

Now let’s return to the focal point of this essay, which is the children that will be born today and thus share with me October 30th as their birth date. How might their lives unfold?

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The vast majority of them will be born into poverty or at least into financially difficult circumstances. Their parents will do their best to feed, clothe, shelter, protect and nurture them; but it will be a difficult struggle. In many cases this ordeal is even more troubling because the parents may not have even desired this child. But lack of birth control knowledge and/or pressure from religious dictators to “go forth and multiply” will have forced them into unwanted pregnancies.

Most of these kids will essentially replicate the lives of their parents. They will never travel far from where they are born. They will never have an opportunity to see the wide world. The jobs that they end up doing will probably provide them only enough income to barely scrape by. They will essentially be wage serfs who end most work days too tired to do anything besides vegetate in front of the TV.

This means that they will be ensnared in the control grid of their Malignant Overlords. Here is some of the messaging that they will get from the TV. It will tell them that buying more stuff will increase their self-worth. It will insist that if they just work harder they can achieve the success of the “better people.” It will tell them who to admire and who to hate. Above all, it will distract them from even pondering the injustices of life, much less trying to do something about them.

Aside from the influences of their parents and their family babysitter – the TV – they will also be rigorously and negatively impacted by the State and the Church. Governments will exclaim that their citizens live in the best country in the world. They will insist that the politicians serve the wishes of the people. They will claim that invading other countries is done only to spread democracy. In other words, THEY WILL LIE – and they will do so quite convincingly.

The churches will also exert as much control on their lives as possible. They will tell them which god to worship. In some cases they will even force them to wear certain clothes and eat certain foods. They will impose strict regulations on their sex lives. And in general these religious monoliths will usurp as much freedom and joy as they can from the lives of their followers.

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And besides the direct harm that the Malignant Overlords subject most of humanity to, they also add more misery through the indirect consequences of their policies. Unbridled predatory Capitalism is destroying the vital systems of the planet. Greed is killing Earth.

Farmland is being ruined by industrial agriculture. The oceans are being fished out by the massive factory ships. Extreme weather events such as high temperatures, droughts and floods keep increasing and intensifying. The acidification of Mother Ocean is killing millions of fish. Fresh water aquifers are drying up. The glaciers that provide drinking water to South and Southeast Asia are declining catastrophically.

So, as I reflect on the future of the more than 350,000 babies born today, (yes, that is a reliable figure) I am deeply saddened by their prospects. Their basic survival will be a struggle that will be made even more difficult as the very nest that they live in rapidly deteriorates. And while this is occurring, the people who could possibly help them will instead be deceiving them and telling them how great things are. They will also be increasing their already obscene wealth and power while they do so.

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Later tonight, when I blow out the candles on my cake, I will not wish for an iPhone6. Instead, I will think of all of the decent, poor, dispossessed people on our lush but troubled planet. And my wish for them will be this: That they might receive the iJustice and iHarmony and iJoy that they so truly deserve.