By Dan Thomas
Beneath the sound of thunder and the roar of impressive lethality, behind the drumming of hearts in adrenaline and the taps of steel venom, there is a chorus of cries by the death of innocence, the moans of suffering, and the fall of humanity. Awed by the raw power of destruction, the theft of the sacred, and the audacity of the foolishly brave, stands the spectators with ignorant pride at the loss that is thought a gain. Entertainment made bloody and with cynical humor . . . violence made sport and cruelty a matter of indifference . . . shame the souls of such participants for there is no glory here. Lies blanket truths with warm and needed comfort to mute the conscience within any mind. Apathy diffuses tongues from exploding in truth once known, and if unknown, cut care to the root of self so no other is seen with value. War, my friends and foes, is tragedy laid upon tragedy, until all good life is smo
thered in the ash of brutality.
Kill when you are told, who you are told, and then kneel before the axe yourself when the excuse of duty is given. This is the story for every soldier in any cause. How brave it truly is to face the bullets . . . how noble and selfless it is to give so much for a cause that is believed, but to the utter dishonor of every fighting soul in the field, that cause is most often a ruse. Believe what you are told, don’t question . . . do as you are told without hesitation . . . is that not the motto given by any who lusts for control? Payment and benefits are promised and await the slave for their service of obedience, yet to the masters of slaves such usefulness is always short lived, and the gains to their subordinates are often hollow. Is there truly pride in the makings of another’s fortune by the expense of your minds and souls and bodies torn asunder? Are the master’s good times and prosperity worth the sacrifice of life they deem as pennies in their pockets? Have fear and bravery, discipline and responsibility . . . love and hate and patriotism and servitude all become so blended and blurred that all meaning is lost? Be weary all, for inevitable change is upon us that must awaken the soul, that humanity may survive in spite of human folly.
Brave are we warriors to be sure, but braver still would be our refusal to fire those bullets for the simple sake of commands and our daily bread. Mighty are the machines of war, yet mightier can be the will not to drive them. If that trigger be pulled or that button pressed, may any who dare be damn sure it is known why and for whom and for what it serves, for there is no commendation in the soul for fools and cruelty. The cuts are deep, but the righteous fight will not bleed. We have seen the wrongs, unburied the truth, and by God it is time for justice to come! It is time to end our cycle of humanity’s perpetual suicide. It is time for a new beginning, a fresh appraisal of what it means to be human, and the vitality of peace to be restored for all. Our purpose lays not in our hatred or bigotry, and our destiny is secured not in our destruction. Are we so convinced in this false nature that we accept our doom? Have the screens of technology and the plights of daily life taught us so well that we are nothing? Stand now and declare with heart and will, for the preservation of our humanity, the answer. No. No, we cannot and will not and shall not lay humanity to rest in a cold and forgotten grave! We all have the right to life according to the merits of our actions, the liberty that we hold dear, and the compassion that we practice. We choose a better life than this. We will for a better world than this. We reclaim the responsibility to be governed by humanity, for humanity, and for the freedom to create our futures to the capacity of every individual’s ability in both morality and physicality.
Life near paradise is within our potential. The adversities of war and starvation and suffering are not needed for lessons to be learned if we can awaken to a new way of thinking. There is a better way. Our nature is in evolution . . . evolution in our understanding of the way that our history has provided ample and potent lessons. Interferences for the obsession of domination by any faction, sect, or peoples against another burns a scar into reality, and the scarred retaliate by giving scars. A chain reaction of negative responses is manifested. A perpetual motor begins, that then a “normality” is accepted. Established, these interferences, for whatever purpose they may be, result inevitably in profits for the few, loss for the many, and a degrading of all quality for all. It is contrary movement, contrary for it prevents evolution, as it must be understood that the contriving of exclusivity is the limiting of human potential. The potential we have is the freedom of many minds to choose the course of daily events from which new knowledge is gained. It is gained by the credits or failures, with justice and strength, of the masses that in good conscience participate. Nature finds within our unhampered learning, a state of progress.
War weakens the foundation of humanity by pushing it into the mud and against the stones, sinking its true essence into a blindness that does not heal easily. Yet it can heal by the choice of our compassionate reasoning. Imagine a healthy world, a happy world, a world where prosperity is the normality in a truly holistic sense. Think of a place where unity is a trust, and help to any is affordable by all. There could be a rebirth of reality, and in this reality there could be a renaissance, a revolution, and a revitalization of life. No longer chained by our bleak history, we are launched by history, achieving new heights that at the moment now we can only guess at. It is a lofty vision that few dare see. It is an idealistic dream, that most feel is unrealistic, and maybe they are right but that is still no reason for us not to try. Such an ideal truth could be far closer than mere imagination, if but the individual asks the question before action is done: “Is what I do, what is right for all?”
