Skip this, if you are looking for something light.
We are in the 20th century. This is earth, and the monarchies of the western renascence begin to weaken and fade. Emerging from a recognition of the dignity and rule of conscience, somehow quaintly typified in the rise of a common man in England, dedicated to public service, receiving professional albeit thin wages, and wearing the evolved cravat, weight begins to fall on the conscience of the individual.
How can he cope with the responsibility of the republics which will grow around him to sustain his newly recognized significance? It was long confessed that he was made in the image of Deity, but, where the cart wheels met the road, that did not translate to respect, for most of 4,000 years. He emerges from the blender of WWI.
Brief stop in the realm of anthropological and spiritual self worship. 1940.. Build an empire on superior genes? They managed 6 Million in Germany, 10 Million in Russia and then some 60 Million in China. Not a huge cost considering revisionists cannot be found in sufficuent numbers to erase their witness of martyrdom.
Fast forward through the winter of fear and free sex breaks out in San Francisco. Cant hardly help it. It senses spring, and has all sorts of pent up wishes. and we arrive at
He passes the mantle forward. Am I moving too fast or do you really want to read about the gushing of blood (multicides) that preceded the moment? We cant stop. Come back another time, and educate yourself at the dark wall of sobriety. Were we there, we would yet be where they fell.
Fast forward to Tunesia, in December of 2010 and a man aflame, amidst rising prices of sugar and cooking oil. His government ate his soul for dinner every night for years, and he had had enough. So likewise his brethren in Egypt, and by Feb 2011, the Egyptian dictator and half-friend of the west that espouses democracy until fear of losing control arises, is deposed.
Now for 5 month we cannot decide whether we are pleased with the fakery of dropping bombs on an insignificant Libya will adequately reassert our "commitment to democracy". Truth be told, unpleasant things can come if we don't step on someone. Is order and our utopian dream really so desirable if we must let the same human that stopped those tanks let loose? There are no guarantees. All these self-immolating, fanatics who resist their ethnical diverse dictators may want to destroy everyone, if given a chance. Our superior conscience and grasp of the human condition got us here. Theirs will take us back.
So, as it turns out noises from his friends in the White House reassure Al-Assad that bombs dropped on Libya will be the fury he reaps for inspiring friends to wander the streets and kill wantonly, since the voices did not die down when the bodies that carried them dropped, pieced by his bullets.
Why does he reign? After 41 years, and a reputation of leaving tens of thousands of bodies in the streets in the 1980s he reigns for the same reason some of the worst examples of humanity ever, occupy places in our own government.
Because of the dual edged lie that
1. Whatever he does is better than what would happen were he removed from office.
2. Cries for freedom are really the populist voice of murderers who will use their ignorant puppet revolutionaries to bring others into bondage
Tyranny is the tanks. Tyranny is the lying. But tyranny is also the believing.
How different is Al-Assad than Adolph Hitler? Both derived their power from those impressed with their management skills, and promise to keep their people from something worse.
The Apostle Paul wrote of a terrible time and those who bear the fault of allowing tyranny to dilute the hope of freedom. These words condemn those who believe a lie:
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. - 2 Thessalonians 2:10
In fact, the words "deceivableness of unrighteousness" indicate the unrighteous, or blameable condition of being deceivable. We have a responsibility, everyone does, to evaluate the things we hear and see, and make judgments. To refuse to do that is to become candidates for destruction.
I write this because, every day, I think of my friend whose family is in Syria, and of what it must be like to see the people understandably teeter on the edge of destruction, with many endorsing the tyrant out of a combination of fear, and rationalization. And I think, with disgust, of what it must be like to see American's deluded by the suggestion that tyrants that we have supported might indeed be better than genuinely embracing the freedom of a people to determine their own destiny.
So, I'm an avatar in a world where there is no tyrannical political power, but I want among avatars who, every day know a form of stress and concern for their relatives and for humanity in general, and I'd give them the prims off my feet, and he textures off my back if it would somehow let them know that there are many of us who will stand in front of the tanks, too. Even if the world we end up in doesn't look like us, as much as it does today.
Before you go, think about it please. What is going on in the middle east is just as critical as the heavily publicized Egyptian revolution, even if reality doesn't conform to the standards of TV, with a quick and satisfactory ending.
From today's news:
The 16 deaths reported in Homs' Khalidiya and Bab Amr neighborhoods on Tuesday brought the total death count since the weekend to at least 33, activists and residents said.
Another resident said: "There are troops and armored vehicles in every neighborhood. The irregular forces with them are death squads. They have been firing indiscriminately since dawn with rifles and machineguns. No one can leave their homes."
This is every day, for some. Every day.
Remind someone, "we won't believe the lies", and stand with them.
