WALKING ON THIN ICE

collage by smith

can “do as you would be done” ethically be turned around to “do unto them as they have done unto us”?

governments murder torture lie maim and imprison whenever they wish. campus security cops taser students who ask inconvenient questions. police lie cheat beat kill. the rich steal lie kill at will. politicians lie and steal and all too frequently kill. corporations steal and murder and lie and sell defective products whenever there’s a profit in it (anybody remember thalidomide as a birth control ingredient?).

why can’t we do unto them as they do unto us?

my head is filled with the theoretical moral good i’ve been taught through the wisdom of the ages, while in real life i see what those in power actually do - and these two views are diametrically opposed.

it’s almost as if our rulers use the teachings of non-violence as a tool against us.

why can i not do to them what they do to me, or do to others in my name? especially when they’d stop doing it if we did it to them in return as punishment for their actions?

it’s the old question of what would you do if you could go back in time and stop hitler. well, we have hitler types in power now, and no one’s doing anything. the people who were elected to stop this madness - our congress via impeachment - are not only NOT doing it, but are busy bloodying their own hands instead.

since voting didn’t work, some say we must stop this through civil disobedience and mass protest. but americans are too busy being “Good Germans” for that to work - all they seem care about are their creature comforts, their cell phones, SUVs, designer jeans, and the latest Britney Spears horror show.

how does one go about waking the american public to crimes being committed by our government officials who weren’t even elected - especially when the newspapers and tv news shows that are supposed to enlighten us are owned by the very class of people perpetrating the crimes?

these questions torment me because even asking them violates everything i know to be good, true, moral, and civilized. it’s even worse because i come from the hippy generation who thought richard nixon was as low as you could go - if only that were true. “peace, love and understanding” definitely isn’t working.

and so the loop loops back - what can one do in the face of our uncivilized leaders murdering millions? one thing that comes to mind is our original american revolution where we had to declare real war against very specific british wrongs. but how does one go to war against entrenched evil within our own borders, especially when the bad guys own the police, the judges, the colleges, the army, the money, the electricity, the weapons, the media, the roads?

just asking questions like these can get you labeled as a terrorist these days - which scares me very much because with our new patriot laws, they can pick up anyone they want anytime and anywhere they want without saying why, or even letting anyone know who they’ve arrested or where they’ve been taken. they make speaking up frightening, they make silence seem safe. but in the face of such fear, my keeping silent would scare me even more - ethical moral civilized thinking people do not live their lives in fear of bullies - they band together and do something about them.

but the most important question right now is this - how does one stop evil without becoming evil oneself?

collage by smith