What's It Going To Take?

It's enough to keep you awake at night...Or to start drinking again (Or more). I know it makes me want to run away and hide under a rock until everyone comes to their senses, but I won't because it's pretty evident they won't.

Just before this new century I was beginning to have hope for humanity. Gay Marriage was starting to be accepted, the Hate Crime Bill became law, largely because of what had happened to Mathew Shepard in Wyoming, and America was actually starting to accept Equal Rights among the sexes and races. Back in the days of Waldenbooks I'd met this woman who was an interior designer. We use to go for coffee and talk about how the world might become when our generation finally died out, when the last visages of racism is buried with us. 

I honestly believed that.

But there is a disease that refuses to die and there is no cure for and it's found in the heart and soul of humanity. Hatred. It's ugly, it destroys everything it bumps into and it finds strength in religious texts. I've seen first hand how a smooth talking person of 'Faith' can move the desperate, the afraid, the poor, enticing them to give him/her their all in the name of whatever 'God' their worshiping at the moment. Most of these leaders never really have much of an education and the people who listen to them wouldn't care if that person had ever graduated from the fifth grade. These people tell the crowds what they want to hear, not what the facts of history or linguistics really say.

They don't care that King Jimmy ordered the Bible to be written in a way to control the 'Commoners', to make them subservient to 'God', to the 'Church' and to the King. He had words changed to protect his actions when he was an Inquisitor and tortured innocent people, called them 'Witches', had them killed. They would care even less if they were to discover he tried to fix his deadly errors toward the end of his life but by then it was too late. The Church was powerful and it would not give up that power.

And if that meant a King had to die...Okay.

Nor do the believers of the Koran care that Aramaic scholars point to the phrase which terrorists always use in suicide bombings, the one about 21 'Virgins' waiting for them in 'Paradise'...The word used as 'Virgin' means 'Raisins', a delicacy during the time of the writing.

People don't care that the Bible is one of the most contradictory books of all time. For centuries we've been beaten with the idea of 'Hell', of being terrified of dying, of the very hand of 'God' coming out of the sky and destroying the planet. They don't care that the word 'Rapture' doesn't exist in the Bible, it was created by a man with no theological history (He was proud of the fact he learned to read Greek all on his own) died with a house filled with graphic gay paintings and drawings while telling anyone who listened that this was wrong.

Facts mean nothing to people. The poor will grasp at anything and the rich simply don't give a fuck. They're pretty sure they can buy their way into 'Heaven' or they realize there is nothing more so they're going to take what they can right now, destroy the planet and continue the lies because it won't matter when they're gone. 

Every day we have news of yet another tragedy. Hurricanes destroying cities and our 'President' thinks throwing them paper towels is proof of his caring for the dead and dying. When the mass killings took place in Las Vegas he was tweeting about golf. He is a man without an education and morals and there appears to be many others like him in our country and that's...Sad. We have over 300 MILLION  firearms in America and the deaths by these weapons rise each year. How do you stop this madness when the corrupt run the country, when the innocent are constantly being abused.

America, once the land of the free has become a place where women are losing all the rights they'd fought so hard to achieve, where politicians tell them they aren't allowed abortions, well, unless you're one of their mistresses who becomes pregnant (True story). The GLBTQ Community is being attacked and killed at an alarming rate and no one in Washington DC will do anything about these murders. America wants to build a wall to separate Mexico from our country and they tell everyone it isn't racist even as they continue to welcome Canadians into our world. 

How is this going to change? How can we stop the hate, the murders, the damage done to the young and innocent because they feel 'Different'. People claim 'Religion' is the answer, but all any religion has done is create war, to take away the freedom of anyone who refuses to believe them, or to simply kill them as being a heretic. The religious leaders will beat people into terror of the 'Different' and the people, being the sheep they are, will follow those words and the innocent will continue to die...Horribly.

It takes one person at a time to stand up and say 'Enough'. To say 'No!' to racism, sexism, bigotry, to the misogynistic rule which has brought us to the edge of total destruction for both the people and the planet.

Visibility is the most important thing a person can do, and the hardest. I've known more than a few who have lost a many so called 'Loved' ones because they didn't believe in their 'God', because they belonged to the GLBTQ Community, because they were different. And, yes, sometimes blood is spilled...This happens in every movement. You have to ask yourself: What are you willing to give to save the future.

I'm fine with giving my life. But that's me and there are other ways to fight this disease eating away at us. 

I hope the next generation will look back and see what a bunch of assholes our leaders and followers of those leaders really were and if I believed in prayer I'd pray they do that one thing we've never been able to accomplish.

Peace among our species.

This can happen. All you have to do is take a stand and realize you're not alone. There are others who want that same freedom you desire and with the Internet...You can find them. 

It's time to make a choice.

Peace.