Humanity Getting its Ducks in a Row

When I was a child my grandmother marvelled at how when she was a child she travelled by ox wagon and now we were sending people to the moon. I wondered then how the world could change in such a way that I'd be marvelling when I was her age. If I ever reached it. It was hard to believe that I ever would, she seemed so ancient. I'm not there yet, but that marvelling time has come already for me. 

There wasn't any internet when I was a kid. Distance communication was by phone, letter or telegram. Arriving by noon train stop pick me up stop don't forget stop I love you stop.

Letters were written by hand, music was played with vinyl, radios were a piece of furniture. I spent 90% of my waking leisure hours outside. We didn't even have a TV. When it came and we finally got a set, we were only allowed to watch one evening a week. And then we could have a coke as well. Bread and milk were delivered to the door. Ice cream cost two pennies, the cost of everything stayed the same from year to year and people stayed in the same job.  

On the surface of things, it was a simple life and a good one. But heaven help you if you were a schizophrenic or depressed or a girl with a sexual appetite, or one who didn't know how to say no. There wasn't a place for you. Where you could feel valuable, that is. There was a place alright; society's garbage bin. Not that it was openly acknowledged. Racism, slavery, abuse of women and children were rampant, but nobody spoke about it. The have-nots were hidden from the pleasant surface of society's fabric. Ah, the good old days.

Now nobody writes anything by hand, radios are either streamed or ugly little boomboxy things. Vinyl isn't dead but mostly it's music by download, books by download. TV on your laptop. 

Conversation happens by tweet or text. Impersonal, no risk, no real connection. Fast, though. Ice cream costs anything from R5 to R20 and the price of everything rises every day. Employees are nomads scrabbling to find work in broken economies. The world is at war; so much of mankind a well-oiled killing machine. Polar ice-caps are melting whilst people still debate if humans are destroying the environment. Women get stoned to death for wearing the wrong clothes and wanting to be educated. Child pornography and the slave trade still flourish around the world. 

Sure we've sent men to the moon and found cures for all sorts of diseases but 'experts' can't explain the outbreak of violence amongst seemingly peaceful communities. And we still don't have anywhere close to an understanding of schizophrenia and depression. Children and adults commit suicide and everybody says 'I had no idea they were depressed'. 

Very few say 'if I'd been a better friend, a better parent, a better sibling, I would have noticed because nobody gets to that final moment of despair without there being plenty of signposts along the way.' 

Has the human race really progressed much since my grandmother was a child? The way it expresses itself has changed, that’s obvious. But the percentages of different types of people are probably still the same. What also hasn’t changed is the human capacity to find joy and pleasure within, no matter what’s going on in your life. That’s a good thing. That’s a remarkable thing. 

And we've identified concepts like entitlement and self esteem. We know - or some of us do - that if those two aspects are fragmented it doesn't matter how talented a person is, they'll never make any progress. If they don't get help. And help is available. We know that we can learn to say no. That we're allowed to pay attention to what we need. That what others think of us matters a whole lot less than what we think of ourselves. That if we want others to treat us with respect we have to treat ourselves with respect. We know a lot more. We haven't necessarily learned how to put it into practise, but that will come.

An even bigger difference between when I was a child and now is that the underbelly has been exposed, that's clear. We haven't been able to keep that lovely smooth surface unruffled by the reality of society's inequalities and injustices. It’s uncomfortable to see but uncomfortable isn't necessarily all bad.

The good thing about it is that the have-nots have finally found their voice. And that makes me marvel as much as my grandmother did. Just learning to get our ducks in a row.

Gay Marriage, Racism, Giant Corporate Interest – the Fight Against Injustice

Statistics on gays and lesbians in the US form a very small percentage of the total population. Yet look what they achieve, in spite of the huge and inhuman resistance to them. Treated like animals, spurned by society, laughed at, mocked, hated. Gay politicians fight courageously and are shot for it, like Harvey Milk. That doesn’t stop others from taking up the cause. Brave people. Determined people.

What about African Americans? How hard did they have to fight against crippled minds and psychopathic power?  How many sacrifices did they make, never knowing whether they could succeed or not? How many women and children were raped, never receiving justice, just more of the same? But they didn’t give up.

And now, the right for gays and lesbians to marry is gaining momentum. They will succeed. And although the conservative, intolerant white mentality that supported the KKK and slavery lingers on, sometimes in the most alarming places, despite the racism that underpins all conservative politics in the US, Barack Obama is a twice-elected president.

It only happened because enough people said “it’s enough” while they were demoralized and destitute of spirit; excluded from mainstream society and the benefits that those who are included take for granted. The hardest fight of all. People say it’s easiest to fight when you’ve got nothing to lose. That’s because they’ve never been there. When all you can hold onto is something so minimal it’s invisible to others it’s more precious to you than anything else in the world. To fight knowing you may have to give that up isn’t easy. It crucifies you. But they did it.

How many people, I wonder, have been hurt by the banking crisis? How many lives have been destroyed by the hold giant corporations have on politics? How many people maimed, tortured, killed, because of the power of the military industrial complex?

How many people think banks and bankers should be punished for their crimes and forced to pay where it hurts? I'm sure it's a greater percentage than that of any minority that has fought for its rights and succeeded. Yet Americans seem to remain powerless. Why? Because they don't care enough to actually band together as one and fight and never give up? Because hardliner conservatives continue to be voted into Congress? Because they all use the banks and corporations that are busy destroying them?

It's not just the US, it's western society. Banks and big corporations control the world. But they’re run by people. There are a lot more of us than there are of them. It's time for a world revolution of a completely different sort. No guns, no violence. Just intelligence (as in thinking for ourselves and not letting ourselves be conned by politicians) and persistence. 

Maybe it’s already begun. At the beginning of the fight for gays and lesbians; in the days of slavery and the KKK, it probably looked as though nobody was fighting. But they were. It was just the beginning. It always starts as something internal. That’s where we are with the control that banks and giant corporate interest has over most of us. We're angry, we know it's happening. Pockets of active resistance flare up. We haven't banded together yet but our revolution will gain momentum. Revolutions always do.