by Ray Jason
 |
| Ray on his birthday 2015 |
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…???
*******
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?
*******
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.
*******
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.
******
Later tonight, when I blow out the candles on my cake, I will
not wish for an iPhone 6s. 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.