American Totalitarianism

Life in the United States has not changed that drastically in the last decade, or has it? I don’t think the habits of the human race ever will be that different than what they were in the year 20 A.D. We are human, we eat, poop, drink, and have sex. Above all of these needs though is the need to think. Life without thinking is unpleasant no matter how pleasant the “vibe.” Vibe can get you through hard times, but it can’t get you out of the long run. Drugs, alcohol, sex, and food can be anodynes, but as any recovering addict knows they quickly wear off. “Hitting the bottom” isn’t pleasant. Thinking is what allows us to stay off the bottom. Being a bottom feeder for a time in one’s life makes us stronger. It let’s us know with fury we cannot live on vibe, because vibe is intangible. It was said on public radio a few days ago emotional responses are triggered by the body. The body as a living feeling being receives sensory information that triggers responses. There, I’ve said it. We are not androids. We are not Conservative Right-Wingers. We are not the Christian Coalition. We are human beings whether we like it or not. Whether we like it or not our minds are subject to alteration by a set of senses which in turn cause emotions. How we train our minds to deal with this information is how we create security in our own lives. Unfortunately we no longer live in the Garden of Eden. Original sin is all around us, and Eve constantly is offering us that apple. What are we to trust? If we trust our bodily senses it then would be easy to be manipulated by say… media, big business, or our federal government. If we cease to use our minds and don’t learn to be “Doubting Thomas’s,” we are fodder for the wolves. That is exactly what America has become over the last eight years with a little help from our friends. Not only have our only venues for enlightenment been weakened, we have been subjected to “A Campaign of Fear and Intimidation” by our own society. Media, business, and our government have inadvertently collaborated to dupe the unsuspecting American people. We have fewer and fewer places from which to learn wise behavior, and consequently we become at the mercy of our merchants, our employers, and our leaders. When faced with this threat we have become so dependent upon a mother’s tit, we no longer can stand up and exercise the very actions that have defined America from her inception. Rebellion? Revolution? Maverick? How can it be the entire philosophical foundations of being a prudent American have been replaced with irresponsible behavior on all fronts? When anyone raised an eyebrow and questioned immoral or unethical behavior the powers at be played the “Atheist” card. Time magazine did a cover story doubting the existence of God. How can this not be evil in its purest form planting the seeds of doubt in the furrows of our souls? There is a time in human life where man no longer should have to doubt himself. Religions provides this option, and it provides a finger in the dike that allows us not to have to worry about our existence on an epic level. Certainly any wise human being takes for fuel the negative experiences of their and history’s messages, but there reaches a time when as human beings we are afforded the “Right to the Pursuit of Happiness.” Once it was guaranteed in the United States Constitution. In eight years of the Bush Administration we have become “Doubting Thomas’s” but doubting the wrong things. Instead of questioning why our traditional infrastructure and way-of-life immediately were challenged by the new Conservative Right political regime, we were coerced to doubt our own lifestyles. Two centuries of planning, execution, and harvesting of the “American Way” were brushed under the carpet for an elite, selfish, rich few. These “Supremacists” put the Stalinists, Nazis, and Fascists on a whole to shame. While there actions were covert they almost were the undoing of the world’s greatest superpower, the United States of America. Hasn’t a lesson been learned? Solitary confinement in life is hell, but maybe that is where they belong anyway.