What do you get when you set up a system flawed and imperfect? At the end of its journey...failure and bitter fruit!
It is no secret that society's basic unit is the family. Before the industrial age, before the factories, before the hands, the cogs, the haves and the have nots, before the advent of all things modern and sophisticated and intoxicatingly distracting, there was a basic formula for survival.
To sustain our lives human beings need food. Every man, woman, and child ever born has had to eat food and drink water to live. In less advanced times society was genius to the necessity that to survive it needed to work together. Blood relations joined efforts contributing towards the vicissitudes of life. Why did they work? For power? For glory? For fame? For their personal comfort? For distinguishment and praise? No. The great majority of all of present day mankind's ancestors lived for each other. Working together was of greater benefit to survival than working alone, but the benefit was not the end and all. The strength of youth made up for the feebleness of the aged. The wisdom of years gave counsel and direction to the inexperience and impulsiveness of the naivety of youth. Life was about using the strengths of each other to advance the benefits of all, and all had a stake in the life of the other. Not out of mere duty, but out of genuine concern and affection, and appreciation. Certain current day personal demands were consciously relinquished, after all, excesses for one person or small group to the larger whole would mean dire consequences. The stability and ability of the whole, both immediately and in the future, might be compromised. In what did those people invest? Each other! In what product producing companies did they back - the ones that increased the survival and ability to live a more abundant life for all. In what pension did those people make consistent and often contributions? Each other! Back then they didn't hire lawyers and draw up contracts. They had bonds of fidelity, loyalty, honor, love! They held each other equal to each other. They were family. They were blood. They were the same. They were for each other.
Today there is a different system, pervasive, and oppressive. It is the system of the one. We work not for each other, but for money. Money now means resources. Money means acceptance, entrance, and approval. We care not, but for our own. Our own lives. Our own enjoyment. Our own time. Our own retirement. Our own perks. Our own fancies. Our own things. And it all comes by way of money. Show me the money. We have it all, but we have nothing.
I once had a conversation with a short sighted petty superficial force of a man. He was trying to indoctrinate me on the virtues of capitalism. He told me of all the benefits of big business throughout the industrial age and up to the present. He brought to mind well known wealthy men. Men who in history have amassed extreme fortunes, lived lavishly, gave token but useful charity throughout their lives and upon their death left significant monetary resources, and recognizably important societal institutions. Looking down at me while pointing his nose up in triumph, with the arrogance of one that believed himself to be in a competition and having won an exchange that makes them of superior moral stock, he ended with, isn't that a good thing? At that cue I asked him what he thought about the conditions and entrapment these businessmen used to amass armies of workers and keep them impoverished. Situations that to me amounted to legalized situational slavery. Did the top dogs ever really share with the cogs of their corporate human machinery the spoils of their own hard work so that they could grow to enjoy the things that they did? Or were they more interested in taking advantage of their circumstances to secure their top dog station throughout life? It seemed to me that the men this man so much revered, for their products, wealth, and empires, helped seed the problems which today are blossoming all around us. Much like imperialist of old these businessmen/empire makers helped institute systems that rewarded self serving, selfish, and individualistic behaviors, after all it made people quite easy to control. The system they created: greater capacity for the sake of greater reward. Quite the opposite of the old school mentality, greater capacity, greater production for the benefit of the whole, that the whole may live a better life, not just the most capable. I tried to tell this man that what he was reverencing was not capitalism but greed motivated by pride. I tried to show him that the systems of behavior these and other organizations had instituted was akin to hiring mercenaries. People that work for money, much like warriors that fight for money, regardless of heart, loyalty, or cause. People that could be kept in control through money. People with no real allegiance except to the systems of gaining power and riches. I told this man of the countless masses that slaved away trapped, lived in far worse conditions than the men that lived high on the hog from their combined efforts. I asked him how he felt knowing that these empires were built on the backs, blood, and lives of so many who in my estimation were very apparently taken advantage of. Can we not equally have celebrated the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt for the masses that died to build the wonders of the pyramids at the end of a whip? Could we not say in like minded conversation that the lives of those that died while in bondage are worth less than the wonders that they created? Do you not see the insensitivity and misguided values in such a statement?
He retorted, it was the workers choice to go to work for these men. I expected as much from this man, because even though he was a self proclaimed follower of Jesus Christ in his heart he resembled more of the cut-throat and self serving businessmen we spoke of than anyone else, except possibly his father, who was a like minded individual. I have learned that such a comment as the one this man retorted is a deflection of the issue. Choice was not the issue. With enough charisma, enough promised exaggerations, enough allurement, most people at least once, but especially people of weaker intelligence than that of the individuals doing the web spinning, can be tricked into consenting to something they would not choose had they known all the ramifications at the onset. Taking advantage of others, especially by tricking them into putting themselves into slavery, is not a matter of choice so much as a matter of character and intelligence. The individual with greater capacity and intelligence bearing the greater responsibility. So I posed the question to him another way. How would you feel if you were part of the working force for these men? How would you feel if you were subject to unsanitary and dangerous factory conditions, paid just enough to keep you coming back, but not enough for you to be able to facilitate any significant change? Relegated to nothing but one more hand. I don't remember exactly what he said but from what I recall he deflected again and began repeating all the advancements and benefits that came from his obvious false heroes. Its true much good has come from bad methods but that doesn't mean that the methods are good or that they should be enthroned as a standard. Speed will give you power to forgo sleep and function quickly and energetically for hours on end, and while the production, assuming there is productive work undertaken, will yield results that are substantial and unequivocal, no one in their right mind would recommend taking mind and body altering illegal drugs to gain alternately attainable results.
A system built on competition will with its capacity to catalyze production and results, bring with it a breeding ground for conflict, contention, disunity, disloyalty, cheaters, liars, usurpers, and suffer masses of people into bondage. Look around you and witness the effects of such a system as it begins to unwind. We are witnesses the product of a broken system. When our interests reside in each other, our successes benefit all, create loyalty, unity, empathy, honesty, productivity, honest creativity, and in the end will motivate far better than selfish filthy lucre ever could. That's what got people, families, and nations a healthy and more abundant life in the past, and it can do it again in the present, all it takes is switching systems. But then again such a switch would not advance the causes of the great empire makers, those people with golden parachutes, lobbyists, and political parties in their pockets. Those that know that their systems are broken, but who care not for the carnage of the broken lives of their employees, customers, share holders and who value the spoils they so value more than their fellows.
Do you want to secure your future, the future of your family, the future of this country? Then its time to invest in honesty, virtue, and your neighbor, and worry less about having the most, or living for self. If we all take care of each and do unto others as we would have be done unto ourselves, our country will prosper. The more we separate, and try subverting each other for the sake of money and perks, relegating each other to obstacles and dehumanizing each other to objects, void of empathy and compassion, the more quickly we will divide and fall apart. The United States of America has power by virtue of her people being united in the cause of truth and justice, shatter that union, and you shatter the power that makes the U.S. great. Its time to turn back to the old ways. Its time to be brothers and sisters again. Its time to take care to do things right and work under the system that has worked throughout the history of this planet. We need to get back to the basics, to our roots. We have to care for each other just as much as we care for ourselves. If we don't change, the broken system that has grown so widespread will break our union and subvert all the progress and good that we have accumulated. For a predominantly Christian nation, its time that we live like Christians should. Its time for this Nation to get back to being under God, taking Him out of our lives, hearts, prayers, schools, and nation has not worked out. Taking the ten commandments out of the government buildings has made it less oppressive for lying and stealing to abound. Its time to reinstate the codes that are the bulwarks of societal progress. Its time to stop trying to amass enough wealth and power to reinvent God and his ways, and actually get back to what works, keeping the counsels He has given which spare us from unnecessary stress, loss and fear. Is our pride so well established and hell bent for destruction that we will follow in the same mistakes every major and great nation on earth throughout history has fallen by? Is our pride preceding our fall? Lets let go of the pride. Lets adopt humility. Lets appreciate one another again. Lets accept one another again for the equality we share in being human beings brothers and sisters to the same general make up and life force. Can we not show affection for one another and win the hearts and minds of those that would dissent from such a path? Can we not be the shining city on the hill we are meant to be? Not shining from riches or wealth of precious metals but shining from riches and wealth of soul from precious virtues that shine and influence all around. There is nothing the American people once they set their mind to do can not do. If we have determined to implode, we will implode, but for all those that would have a different end, let us set our minds to pick up the mandate to be a people under (subject to) God. Then, I am sure, God will bless America.
