When The Going Gets Weird……

The weird turn pro.

And the going is starting…well, continuing at an accelerated pace…to get weird. And will get weirder. We are in a time of great change…on every level. It is a fact that every generation, every era, thinks that it is in the midst of some existential crisis, and lol, in a way they are correct. All of the event and the decisions made in response to their crises have led to…now. And to the confluence of events that we are facing today, in our era.

But our era IS different, if for no other reason than that this is the first truly global era…and in the fact that we are facing a truly global set of circumstances. The conflict of “good” vs “evil” has always been with us, but we are in an era where a true decision between them must be made. And NOT just on the individual level.

Though if course that is where it always begins.

For those not ‘into it’ on the metaphorical level, please excuse the following passage! It is not intended as moralistic preaching, or assigning labels to individuals…but as more of a strategy session, lol.

On one side we have the Forces Of Evil, or a I like to call them…the FOE. On the other we have the Forces Of Good, whose acronym tends to describe the state that its practitioners often wander around in, lol. One of the big differences between Fog and Foe…..and the main reason that the Foe is so often successful in the short term….is, focus. The Foe is ALWAYS intent and driven to create the world it wants to see. It’s world is almost completely reactionary, whenever it sees Good…it is compelled to destroy it, and since their is a lot of good in the world…and the primary focus of the majority of humans is to be and do good….they are always on the attack. These are people whose Outrage Meter is permanently spiked.

The vast majority of the Fog, on the other hand, mainly just wants to be left alone to experience the good things of the world, family, fulfilling work, helping others in their community, riding ponies and petting pooties.

It is only in times of direct threat that the majority of the Fog is activated…world wars and such. And that brings us to this quote from The Usual Suspects: “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing people he doesn’t exist.”

The next step in this ancient balancing act is………the Foe taking advantage of the vacuum created by all that pony riding to expand and expand and expand. Until finally, and completely inevitably since the Foe is completely unable to restrain itself….thank goodness!….The Foe oversteps, and goes too far. Takes too much, destroys too much, kills too many and, emboldened starts to brag about things like torture or spying on its citizens. Slowly but surely, the Foe exposes itself to the Fog.

Like….now.

The Fog starts to focus a bit. The warning cries…The Yelling…of the more assiduous of the FOG (that’s us, folks!) who man the metaphorical front lines, start to be heard and to their astonishment…listened too!

Unfortunately, that usually takes some kind of pretty serious crisis. Apparently more of a crisis than the theft of an election or two, an illegal and immoral war, or torture, or the stripping of the Constitution. It takes THEIR lives being directly affected.

It seems to me that we are approaching that point. Gallup: 80% disillusioned by: meteoriot

Which of course means………that the shit is starting to hit the fan.

Or as one poster on Daily Kos said today: But they just got my attention.

We are at a point of confronting many many issues, issues that can be seen from a larger perspective to be sign, symptoms and indicators of the larger reality we find ourselves in.

The choice to change our way of life and commerce to halt Climate Crisis.

The choice of voting for perpetual war, or for some semblance of peace.

The choice of how our economy works, apparently, as it begins to collapse, on the most meaningful level since the New Deal.

The choice of whether our government is still a government of, by and for, the People…iow, if we will prosecute those who have stolen it in order to rule us and enrich themselves.

The choice of how we will respond to other governments around the world as they kill and oppress our fellow resisters and protesters.

And many many others. All of them with profound implications for the status quo. All of them directly determinant of what kind of world we will wind up with…or ideally, what kind of world we will consciously create.

All of them, at the root, choices between what could be called “good or “evil.” The choice of the Greatest Good for All vs What is Good for the Powers That Be. The choice between cooperation between humans or competition among humans….a philosophy that the Planet is unable to support as we close in towards seven billion humans.

These are in many ways, very frightening times. It is very tempting to shrink back from the ‘front lines,’ to retreat in the face of the complexities and daunting scale of these challenges. It is only natural to be, in a word, scared.

But this is not the time to shrink, this is the time to yell even louder, but not just louder….it is time to yell better, too. Time for all of us to dig down deep and find new reserves of strength and new ways to continue to fight….to win.

It is time for the pros to stand up, for the going is surely getting weird!

I leave you with two quotes, the first from Obama’s speech today, especially in honor of those about to hit the streets tomorrow. The second a little older, lol!

What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk – to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.