It?s Not My Fault! by bobby jennings The New Millennium, The Dawning of The Age of Aquarius, The Age of New Thought, or just New Age all offer us much promise for a better world and an improved human experience. And indeed we have made much progress towards these goals. But with this upward evolution of the human experience has come certain backsliding and that should be expected. For if there is one certainty, it is that life is not upwardly linear but more like a stair step lighting bolt sent by God to show us the way. Viewed in this manner, life can be seen as an ever-ascending staircase with its steps up, its steps down, and its resting places. There is another aspect to this staircase that must be considered. It starts its ascent slowly and gradually increases its upward slope ever quicker so that the higher we get the closer the steps and the more the burden of our load weighs on our shoulders. Stuart Wilde has defined this speed of change as? ?The Quickening?. Certainly we can see and experience this Quickening in our everyday lives. As we enter into this new era, because of this Quickening we must lessen our load to insure that we make it to the top. Just what is some of this excess luggage we must discard to continue our upward mobility? Consider the following. Perhaps at no time since World War II has the world been so close to the brink of war. Not just ?war war? but nuclear war. The US has served as the protector of Asia and has begun to stumble badly. Given our lax control of nuclear secrets you can bet that any highly industrial power in Asia could go nuclear almost overnight. These include Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and soon Viet Nam. The protective treaties that include the U.S. have previously restrained them. As tensions continue to rise between China and North Korea and ?these potential members of the nuclear club, we must ask ourselves how long they will wait for us to clean up our diplomatic act before they start their nuclear production lines. How did we get here? I am sure that it started before Clinton, but the ?Quickening? started when he accepted those campaign contributions from the Chinese and then put the contributors up in the Lincoln bedroom But It?s Not My Fault. In the early 1980?s, Nancy Reagan, with the help of her esteemed husband declared the ?War On Drugs?. What did we get from this war? Much more drugs than when we started. And what did we lose? We have lost much of our freedom, our rights to property, freedom from unlawful search and seizure, and most of all our sense of fair play. Building prisons is one of the fastest growing industries in the US. The US has the largest per capita prison population in the world. Not the free world, mind you, but the entire world. And who is in jail? They include some criminals but also many poor, the black, the disenfranchised, the mentally ill, and the innocent.? The judges have lost the ability through legislation to use ?common sense? sentencing in drug related cases. The Courts have now ruled that prison crowding is unusual punishment; thus, many of the violent criminals are being released early instead of the non-violent drug-related prisoners. Our private wireless, cellular, and internet communications are being monitored by the NSA, and the FBI is making preparations to monitor all of our phone lines. We are now systematically being called in to surrender our DNA to government databases. Government and business already have our photographs, social security numbers, health records, assets and liabilities, family history, previous addresses, employment records, spending patterns, and all of it available to anyone for only $39.99 on the internet.? But It?s Not My Fault. The 1980?s brought us ?Trickle Down Economics?. Lots of money was generated in the last 20 years but true to its name only a trickle made it to the bottom and a very small trickle indeed. In 1980, 1% of the population controlled 20% of the wealth in this country. Today, the same 1% of the population controls 40% of the wealth in the US. It is estimated that 40% of the population does not have adequate access to the health care system, 20% of the population live in poverty, and 20% of the US?s children go hungry. This trend is growing as more and more of the traditional manufacturing jobs are being replaced by lower paying (and many times benefit-free) service, part time, and contract jobs. The joke is ?Thank God, the government policies ?have produced more jobs and I now have three of them.?? But It's Not My Fault The Industrial Age is heralded for bringing us much improvement in our lifestyle. But it also punched a hole in our ozone layer, brought us air and water pollution, carcinogens in our food and water supply, and over-consumerism. We were promised shorter and easier workweeks, but in fact people work 10 hours a week more now than they did 25 years ago. And that?s not the worst of it. Now in most families both adults must work and the children are hustled off to daycare. We are bombarded by advertisements to buy products that we don?t need, have planned obsolesce, don?t deliver as promised, and thank you is becoming an archaic expression.? Henry Ford discovered that if he paid his workers higher wages, they could then afford to buy his Model-T automobiles. This now has been "refined" to simply "don?t pay the workers more, just give them credit". Then they can?t get up and drive away in the cars that they earned. But It's Not My Fault Or Is It? With all our evolution, progress, communities, and technology, we still remain what we were in the beginning, an individual on a personal journey. The quality of that journey is what makes a difference and each of us alone must bear the responsibility for the fate of mankind as we enter this ??Age of Cooperation? ?And cooperation it must be or certainly it will be our last age to define. About The Author bobby jennings is co-publisher of InnerSelf Publications and webmaster of InnerSelf.com/InnerSelf.ca. Originally a Democrat for many years, he moved to the Republican party in the mid 1980's and the Green Party in 2000. He returned to the Republican party after the 2006 election. He now supports common sense initiatives from all parties and votes independently in the general elections. He supports small efficient honest government, government managed capitalism, an independent judiciary, religious tolerance, and social justice. He is an ex-Army officer and retired small business owner. He was born, raised, and educated in the "Old South" in Northern Florida.    Comments (0) >> Write comment Name Website Title Comment Write the displayed characters Add Comment

 

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