From the Death Throes Hope

From the death throes of pacifism and hope, the instinctive resource of violent revolution is born; for the very concept of pacifism is but an elevated opinion, an activated thought, a collective practice to which we ascend through the conduit of life to the zenith of existence.

Pacifism is, perhaps, that which ascends from the nature of survival, while on the other side of the same sphere, extant eternal, is the natural descent to collective violence.

Too often it seems that we in the US live by the axiom 'Divided, we Stand'. Our consumerism is driven by avarice, with the only goals being profit and status.

It seems not so long ago that I was swimming in an ocean of strife, trying to achieve that which I had been taught held value and worth. I owned a business that capitalized on the struggle of others. I abandoned that quest many years ago and have since struggled to financially survive. My financial survival, however, has become secondary to living with purpose and passion.

Now I find that the passion that lives deep within finds its way to strain for the gathering of humanity, for a consensus of compassion, for a time that is for all times, a time that brings with it a deeper acknowledgement that life without greed, life with hope, is a strand of humanity that has always been.

Time has always held both planes of human existence; greed, avarice, and war on the one side, and belief, faith, and hope on the other.

Perhaps the strands of politics and religion are the ropes between these planes of existence, serving as the mechanisms that drive us further from one and nearer the other.

As with most matters of truth, therein lies a paradox. For the very hope and faith that so often draw one to religion and politics are the very same hope and faith that so often turn one away from religion and politics.

Much as there is an existence that is separate, a cocoon (Salman's metaphor) of superficial values, if you will, there is a cocoon that is woven of the fabric of connected humanity - and perhaps we fall from one into the other from time to time, realizing that what we need the most is to be united and to stand for values that reject profit and status; that the common ground of human needs are greater than the common grounds of profit and status.

If we hold then to these values, perhaps we will find the unified strength to stand en masse against the greed, avarice, and status of the wealthy militaristic elite.

Too often such vision is met with laughter, chided as utopian and delusional; and too often is the case that those laughing would be better to either jump in and swim within the warmth of such a delusional, hopeful utopia or simply walk away into their lives of cynicism and greed.

For upon the other side of the illusion is the mass of humanity that would hope and strive for better things. When such hope is stripped from them - when they are chastised and scorned, pulled, ripped, and torn, abused, raped, starved, and murdered - another side of their humanity surfaces.

It is from this other side that revolution is born. And from that which has been denied, namely the desire for peaceful resistance against might for the betterment and common good of humanity, is born a mass of humanity that strikes out from the heart of a dying breed.

From the death throes of pacifism and hope, the instinctive resource of violent revolution is born.