The Voices Of Individuals Are Being Silenced, The Voice Of The Machine Reigns Supreme

I woke up this morning thinking I must write like the world depended on it. Because it does. I truly believe the pen is mightier than the sword, that thoughtful words intent on peace can end wars. The war machine knows this too, which is why it has its claws deeply embedded into corporate media. Never will you hear the words of peace uttered in the media, seldom if ever will you hear the names of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or Jesus Christ mentioned. What voices for peace that once existed in corporate media have long since been banished. The corporate press has so lost itself in its role of cheerleader for war that the only time they now question government spokespersons is to ask why the United States is not instituting a no-fly zone in Ukraine, a measure likely to open the floodgates to nuclear Armageddon. I write like the world depends on it, because all nuance and perspective have been stripped from the official narrative. To dare to provide context, to point out just how completely the corporate media are failing at their jobs, is to invite the label of Putin puppet. I tell myself to write like the world depended on it because otherwise the urge to keep quiet and go along would overwhelm me. Because the power of group-think is immense and I do not wish to cause undue trouble or concern to friends and loved ones. I want my life to be a normal one, filled with the simple pleasures life provides. I’ve never been the type to draw attention to myself. I like to think I am not one who is addicted to drama, does not like to cause scenes, or make enemies. Believe me when I tell you I have other things I would rather be doing if I did not feel the world depended on me not being silent. There are many books by great thinkers and storytellers that I have not yet opened. The desire to keep quiet is great. The more the official narrative attains unanimity, the harder it is to speak of anything that is not officially sanctioned, to speak any thought that is my own and not merely repeated from the media. The urge to not simply silence my voice but silence my inner voice as well is hard to resist. To bow to the supposed greater knowledge and wisdom of those in places of power would be such an easing of that weight that is on my mind. It is greatly to be wished. But when I turn on the media I realize how impossible that is for me to do. To spend thirty seconds watching any mainstream media outlet is to do damage to my mind, my emotional state of wellbeing, my soul, and my artistic sensibility. Their sense of proportionality is utterly lacking, so that the speck in another’s eye is amplified while the moat in their own is ignored. Their desire to dig deeper into issues is absent, their grasp of the subject matter does not extend beyond talking points, their lack of concern for the lives that are ruined by what they are pushing lacks humanity, their inability to speak to spiritual matters betrays their soullessness. I had this feeling decades ago when I watched the FOX News channel, but now it has spread everywhere. Where once conservative Sean Hannity was forced to argue with liberal Alan Colmes, now there is no challenge to his pronouncements. And so it goes across the spectrum, each personality speaking to an audience that is not challenged to think, each personality in their own way spouting the official narrative with a local vernacular that appeals to their particular audience. The voices of the talking heads speak not merely with authority but with a demand for compliance. To doubt the media nowadays is to doubt the pronouncements of the church in centuries past. To doubt the information coming from anonymous sources within intelligence agencies is to doubt the proclamations of the king. The term excommunicated has been replaced with the term cancelled, but the effects of such an edict can still ruin careers and end in censorship. I feel the call for uniformity more strongly now than I ever have in my entire life. During the time of 9/11 and the Iraq War, there was still a feeling of party differences, where one could oppose the actions of an administration and still feel part of the political party not in charge. But now the calls for conformity are coming from within the party I once considered my own, and they are not simply calls but shrieks. I write like the world depends on it, not because I hold any particular insight or knowledge that the world needs to hear but because I know the voice of the individual and the outsider still needs to be heard. The lies and even the truths of those not annointed by the establishment press and the establishment political parties are being silenced, while the lies of the establishment are amplified even when incontrovertible evidence to the contrary is easily obtained. I write like the world depends on it, because I believe each of us speaking from the truth that is inside of us will shape the world towards beauty and truth far more than us conforming ourselves to work within a machine that seeks to steamroller all unapproved and dissenting voices. I write like the world depends on it, not because I believe there is greatness in what I say, but from my belief that people communicating openly and without coercion can together achieve greatness. The narrative by which we all now live our lives is one that is being written not by people motivated by their own inner ideas, but by those willing to serve the machine. And while the machine rewards those who provide value to it, the machine has an agenda of its own. It will squash everything in its path that does not provide it value. Every living thing on this planet is now in its path. I write like the world depends on it because my voice is a human voice. For all its flaws and shortcomings it is a voice of an individual in a world filled with the sound of machinery and conformity. Too many of us only see our value in terms of how we can serve the machine, too few of us willing to ask if the machine serves humanity or the long-term viability of life on Earth.

The Carpenter Who Never Fixed But Only Destroyed

 

There was a sad and decrepit carpenter who saw a crisis looming in every house on his block. He informed one neighbor that his front porch was in danger of collapsing and that he was just the person who could fix it. The neighbor was alarmed because he knew little of such matters, and so he trusted the carpenter to take care of his front porch.

 That very day, truckfuls of material were delivered and the carpenter and a large crew of helpers immediately got to work. With sledgehammers and jackhammers they went at it, instantly demolishing the front porch, along with a bit of the front wall of the house (it seems there was some dry rot there as well). In no time at all what once was a front porch was now a pile of rubble.

 But after that, things went more slowly. And soon the owner of the house with the demolished porch discovered that the carpenter was spending all his time talking his neighbors into getting their houses fixed instead of keeping an eye on the few workers who were still on the job around the clock and yet didn’t seem to fix anything.

 After landing a job replacing someone’s garage, the carpenter moved even these few workers off the job and moved them all on to the next one. Again, in no time at all, the crew demolished the garage to nothing more than a pile of rubble. But after this was accomplished, along with a little collateral damage caused to the next-door neighbor’s tree (which was in the way of the wrecking ball they brought in), the promised improvements were slow to be delivered. In fact, things were much worse than they were, because while the garage the man once had was far from perfect, at least he could park his car in it. Now, men with expensive equipment stood around as if nobody had told them what the job was they were sent to accomplish. And then one day, the little carpenter ceased to appear at the job site at all, leaving behind a small contingent of hired hands who did little to nothing to make things better.

 And so it went, the little carpenter time and again warned people of the imminent danger they faced should they not place all their faith in him and allow him to use all the force necessary to fix the problem.

 Soon, half the houses in the neighborhood had piles of rubble where imperfect but serviceable edifices once stood. Many people were forced to leave their homes because they could no longer live there. And yet the little carpenter continued to convince people that he and only he could save the neighborhood from the looming disasters that no one really noticed until he gave them a good thorough investigation.

 Never once did the carpenter fix a house the way he said he was going to, although the prosperity he brought to himself and his partners was incontestable. Yet never once did anyone in the neighborhood seriously question him about the terrible work he was doing, for as soon as the subject was broached, a new catastrophe was discovered which needed the focus and attention of everyone if they did not want property values in the neighborhood to plummet.

 The moral of the story goes, if the word “moral” can be used regarding such a story, is that if you are a horrible carpenter that can only destroy and never improve, you better have one hell of a public relations firm to back you up.