What
We Truly Seek
By
Don Hynes
04 December,
2007
Countercurrents.org
America
must do what it fears most to do - contract; a direction opposite to
its self image of limitless expansion, its belief in a Divine national
preference. Financially America has been obsessed with personal and
corporate wealth and militarily with unchallengeable might, serving
its iconic projection as the unyielding victor, the ever champion, the
exceptional nation. After two hundred years of unparalleled advance,
to the pinnacle of international power following World War II, America
will learn as all unbalanced ambition does, that descent will follow
rise, that the worship of wealth will ultimately yield poverty, that
arrogance will succumb to humility. America will contract; the only
questions being the final cost and with what grace. If we choose our
future as we’ve chosen our recent past we are in for a torturous
descent.
The strategy
of those in power is essentially confusion; the primary means to distort
our individual and collective decision making: the Surge, the Bail Out,
the Clean Skies Act, Mission Accomplished, Cooperation and Friendship
with the Republic of Iraq, No Child Left Behind, the Protect America
Act, all lies and obfuscation, portraying virtue where there is none,
charitable promise where there is only violence and greed.
We can come
to our senses as a nation, for we have the inherent intelligence, but
what we lack is reflection, avoiding the often difficult work of moral
character with what simply sounds good, preferring entertainment to
the developed practice of insight. Our perceptions must be strengthened
and refined by steadfast inquiry, our thinking forged by the willingness
to learn and to stand against the lies and deceit of our governance,
our media, our culture.
Is it possible
for peace to come from a conference between an unrepentant oppressor
and a selected collaborator from the oppressed, meeting with a moral
non-factor and his female counterpart? A snowball’s chance in
hell are the odds for the recent Annapolis photo opportunity leading
to anything meaningful, although as intended, providing more confusion
and deception to those who do not look behind the smoke and mirrors
The gravest
implication, and the foundational purpose of sowing confusion, is to
further ignorance and harvest impotence; the imploring “what can
I do?” a relinquishment of individual sovereignty, collective
direction, a despair amongst those who feel disenfranchised amidst the
still present opportunity of freedom.
Life calls
to us from beyond the bars of this self-invented prison. We can put
aside some of the holiday decorations, the sentiment that as yet has
no foundation, and willingly contract; refusing debt, refusing the mercantile
indoctrination, disciplining ourselves toward the learned ability to
know when and what is simply enough.
When our
ambitions have fully contracted we may find that the contractions will
lead to birth, the birth of what we truly seek during winter’s
dark: real kindness, grounded generosity and the wise practice of compassion.
Email: [email protected]
Vantage Point: http://vpdonhynes.blogspot.com
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