Afraid of Reality

We live in a time, far from unique in human history, in which the “leaders” of our society simply cannot bring themselves to face reality. Two examples:

Via Crooks and Liars

Turley:”…It’s really amazing, Congress, including the Democrats, have avoided any type of investigation into torture because they do not want to deal with the fact that the president ordered war crimes. But, evidence keeps on coming out. The only thing we don’t have is a group picture with a detainee attached to electrical wires.”

Via stormchaser

The scientists investigated how much climate changes as a result of each individual emission of carbon dioxide, and found that each increment of emission leads to another increment of warming.[…] With emissions set to zero in the simulations, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere slowly fell as carbon “sinks” such as the oceans and land vegetation absorbed the gas. Surprisingly, however, the model predicted that global temperatures would remain high for at least 500 years after carbon dioxide emissions ceased.

snip

Matthews and Caldeira found that to prevent the Earth from heating further, carbon dioxide emissions would, effectively, need to be eliminated.

….it is difficult when an entire world’s transportation and financial system is built upon fossil fuels. This includes the hungry populations of emerging nations like China and India that want their chance at the riches the West has enjoyed since the 1950’s.

And of course, The Big One

The making of aggressive wars is a crime according to the Nuremburg Trials. Since it is nearly accepted fact now that Bushco manufactured the evidence to go to war with Iraq, that means that there was in fact no acceptable reason or justification according to any laws or conventions for the invasion, it was clearly a war of aggression. Below are the crimes cited by the military tribunal for the Nuremburg Trials:

ARTICLE 6

   The Tribunal established by the Agreement referred to in Article 1 hereof for the trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries shall have the power to try and punish persons who, acting in the interests of the European Axis countries, whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following crimes.

   The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:

   (a) Crimes against Peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a Common Plan or Conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing;

   (b) War Crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity;

   (c) Crimes against Humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,14 or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated.

   Leaders, organizers, instigators, and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a Common Plan or Conspiracy to commit any of the foregoing crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such plan.

Congress won’t face these realities, the Presidential candidates won’t face these realities, the media won’t face these realities. And since the media won’t face them, they don’t report on them. Thus The People as a whole are in effect prevented from facing these realities. Even if they knew, the best they could do is clamor for their leaders to ‘do something.’ Which they won’t, because they are afraid.

Afraid of criticism. The criticism of the media, and their colleagues. Afraid to rock the boat. Afraid to stand up and address reality for fear of being called “crazy.” For fear of being “not taken seriously” For fear of being shunned or marginalized for not “going along” with the agreed upon “reality.” Afraid to tell the truth. Afraid of reality.

The result is ….a consensual fantasy.

In which we are all forced to live…..while people are tortured and killed and the atmosphere we breathe is steadily and increasingly poisoned.

If we do nothing else on the blogs let it at least be said that we did face reality. That there was someone pointing at a naked Emperor and his Court of Fools and…..yelling.

Whether or not this nascent medium of expression turns into something greater, perhaps a vehicle for the voice of The People of the world to exert power over their leaders by holding them accountable and holding their feet to the flames of truth…and finding better leaders….we can at least salve our conscience with the fact that we were here and spoke out. Even if no one listened.

But they are listening, and reality is starting to penetrate the fog of the consensual fantasy. And now that the Mighty Wurlitzer of Republican propaganda is running out of air, it is even more important to raise our voices. To bring what influence we can to bear through our voices and numbers.

Sooner or later the primary pon farr will be over. Then the blogs can get back to what they do best. Challenging the consensual fantasy of our “leaders,” both in the media and in politics. Educating The People as to what the realities we face actually are. Making sure the Republican Reign of Terror is defeated.

And doing the hard slogging day to day work of facing the realities of the world we live in and the thankless work of getting our fellow humans and our leaders to stop being afraid and face ….and perhaps even solve….the grim realities we face.