http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aEsoIvttbU
I'll start with a footnote - if a life worthy of the Bible
has been lived within the last hundred years it's that of Thomas, who started
the peace vigil at the White House quickly marginalized and ultimately killed
in large part by the paranoid, schizophrenic with persecution complex
Connie. But before Thomas, just before
Thomas ever hit DC and started the vigil, he went on a biblical leap of faith,
a walk across northern, Muslim Africa, a place immensely feared by Westerners;
without a cent in his pocket. I believe
the Scripture he cited was about the lilies of the field, but certainly about
no worry for tomorrow. No need for money
- relying on the Creator for today, and the Creator to worry about
tomorrow. It's a must read. If you go to Thomas's site, Prop1.org, Thomas is a link that you should find on the
main page, and on the page you should then get it should talk about "Life,
Liberty, and the Hot Pursuit." It's
a must read, this series of linked stories, essays, drawings, graphics. End of footnote.
The potent, INSHE warriors, insanely humane warriors of
Unviolence throughout history. These are
the antithesis of reckless people. These
are in the antithesis of thoughtless people.
And these are the antithesis of fundamentalist, religious wackos who
have rejected the truths of science, have rejected the truths of responsibly
using our intellect and our senses.
These are, these are solidly grounded people. They may have strong mystical tendencies,
they are absolutely people of the uncontrollable 80% of our nervous system
that's the heart, but their feet are on the ground.
So the fact that they wind up in prison. The fact that their bodies are frequently at
legal or physical risk or both, could easily be misconstrued as
irresponsibility, recklessness, suicidal tendencies, masochism. It's none of those.
Several times last year, as I recall, within the last
several years anyway, there have been two living recipients of the medal of
honor, MOH, people that had repeatedly risked their lives in an incident to
save comrades in arms. There's nothing
that I see that suggests they were reckless, looking for martyrdom. Casual with their own lives, without a
tendency to think about tomorrow, but in the situation where so much was at
stake, all tendencies that we consider normal in this sickest of all societies
- to be prudent, to layaway for tomorrow, to avoid taking risks, to look out
for number one, were all squeezed to the sidelines. And I don't find those people crazy; I find
them admirable and ones that I want to learn from and emulate. Some of you do too.
So what's going on there?
In certain circumstances, times of great peril, it is pathological, it
is not adaptive, for the species to be laying up for tomorrow, to be thinking
about tomorrow. We have months to secure
a future, other than hell on earth for the next 2000 generations, 200 billion
people. This is the time to be putting
money into our life insurance plans?
This is the time to be worrying if we're going to spend the rest of our
lives in prison, if the best way to stop the impending doom is to put our
bodies unviolently in the way of such a thing?
This is the time to worry about whether we’re going to die on death
fast? If so, then those medal of honor
recipients were fools.
These are these are fathers, and mothers, and they didn't
just decide they don't care about the people around them, their dependents. They decided that being a human being, caring
about all human beings was part of what they owed to humanity, including their
dependents, driven by their sense of responsibility, not instead of it. I suspect this all sounds like duh, like
really obvious, but if you're going to be fair, such thoughts are not those
that stay prominent in our thinking, as we meander through this sickest of all
societies; were distracted from such really obvious thoughts. If we're living as brother and sister to the
4 billion people on this planet, living on four dollars a day, as a brother and
sister to the 26,000 children that will die tomorrow, that will die today, that will die day after
tomorrow, from lack of clean water; if
we're living as brother and sister to the next 2000 generations, were laying up
stores for tomorrow? Really? 'No, I can't take the job. I can't take that job, role, life-choice - it
doesn't pay anything, I can't take that.
I'd have to live on the street, on homeless food. Really?
That’s sufficient reason to keep your body out of harm’s way? And our founding fathers, great ancestors
thing what?
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