[Terry's Tale] Sun and Cloud's Shadow

In life, all creatures act in accordance with their nature.  Herbivores such as grazers eat grasses, and such as browsers eat stems, small sticks, and whatever other vegetable matter that they can find in the course of a day.  Scavengers generally eat (prefer to eat) carcasses of creatures as they would prefer not to kill.  Predators kill and eat.  Usually, they seek out the old, the lame, the sick, the very young, or those not adequately wary.  Each acts according to its nature.  A rabbit, suddenly finding itself in the midst of a well-tended garden is not seeking to steal.  A scavenger, finding a long dead creature does not turn up its nose at its fortune.  A predator does not seek to murder, whatever its prey.  Each is acting according to its nature and though it’s behavior may become somewhat modified by learned behaviors, it remains a creature of its nature. 

Unlike other creatures, man can strongly influence and modify his behavior through learning and experience.  For example, man does not make war because it is in his nature to make war, he makes war because of greed.  It has long been recognized that war is a form of organized theft.  Man seeing life from a very different perspective from other creatures often seeks things through greed.  This is most readily understood from the perspective of material gain.

Worse still, those who benefit from making war are not those who fight the war, nor those whose countries have been made war upon.  Instead, it is those who from behind the scenes manipulate others to think that war is good.  Once enough people have come to agreement with that position – often not stopping to think about who will truly gain from the war, or the terrible consequences the war may have on those who live in that country as well as on those sent to fight that war – then the arguments, however specious, however callow, hold sway and people are forever changed in brutal ways.

Not one war that the US has directly engaged in since I became a teenager was truly justified.  One might argue that the limited involvements of the first six months in Afghanistan after 2001, or the limited interventions in Libya, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kuwait, and Kosovo created outcomes that were somewhat positive for the peoples of those countries, but I can think of no other US military involvements for which that might be said.  And the numbers of involvements and invasions is not small.  Just the invasions – (I number Afghanistan to be one after the first six months since the primary purpose of eliminating Al-Qaida had unquestionably been completed by that point) Afghanistan, Iraq, Grenada, Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Santo Domingo, not one had any reasonable justification.  Not one threatened the US, not one had the capability of invading the US, not one was involved in an attack on the US, and not one had declared war on the US.  Yet, their people suffered, and in most cases combatants suffered.  Even now, despite the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan, they have been trying to create  war fervor for the control of Iranian oil, even if it should come to an invasion of Iran.  Combine the US invasions with US involvements in Uganda, the Middle East, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, among so many others that have proven disastrous for the peoples of their countries, people of the US should stop and think of the terrible legacy it has been creating for the world since the beginning of this period.  Just so that a few rich people might enhance their wealth, these people arrange their propagandists to create stories designed to motivate even good people to do bad things.  And, like in a rigged card game, they pretty much win. 

To seek peace instead of profit is not their way because they want profit now despite the fact that their potential long term profit could often significantly outweigh their short term gains.  Understand, during the time period that I am talking about this has been the paradigm of US business as well.  The long term goals requiring research and development efforts have become minimized or eliminated altogether in favor of short term gain.  Profit has greater value than life – thus the efforts to impede the movement towards  renewable energies, to impede or prevent proper cleanup and rectification of spill sites (I am not just talking about the BP spill in the Carribean or the Exxon Valdiz disaster in Alaska, but the dumps of coal ash, or chemical spills – be they purposeful or accidental – even such as the Love Canal dump, among so many others.  This destruction of long term goals in favor of short term gain, plus special tax breaks, have motivated business to move away from this country causing numerous well-paid jobs to evaporate.  Worse still, we have banks (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc.) and insurance companies (AIG, for example) that are too big to fail.  They automatically have a government-backed ‘get out of trouble card’ with the US government. These models of business and government actions now seem to be ingrained as a part of the culture.  Yet, there can be change.  If it is not just Progressives, but even a true Libertarian such as Ron Paul who understands this to some degree, there can be hope.

Thus, I seek a path where I am able to do as much good as possible where I can in my years yet available.  In addition, I seek as well to know more than I do now about those whose understanding of the path of peace seems to have an approach I prefer and thus I seek the knowledge, the handiwork, the artistry, of those who came to this same path long before I.  The temples I visit are but one manifestation of this philosophy.

To those who have fallen under the spell of the rich oligarchy now controlling the US I would give caution.  Just as a man becomes known, either in positive or negative ways, by the tools he uses and thus influences the legacy he leaves, the mechanic by his wrenches, the accountant by his books; countries do so as well, and the ‘Trail of Tears’ the US has created in the post World War II years is not a record that any US citizen should look upon with pride.

I hope this plea for change will not fall upon deaf ears and closed minds.  There is much that is positive in life so we should work, not for simple profit, but for the benefit of life – all life, not just peoples lives – to seek a future for existence on this planet.  

In life, we are destined to walk paths which will take us into the sun or to cloud shadow.  Our path is not our choice, but instead, it is for us to choose how long we wish to journey on the given path.