Utopia or Destruction

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN you can't find God up there?
Keep looking!" "Actually, Mr. Whipple, we can't
find ANYTHING up there. I will have to assume that we are
the only intelligent life in this Universe."


So MUCH to report since my last blog entry on Tuesday, but here are the highlights:

• New Religion - Okay, this guy in Birmingham, AL named Ford Vox has engineered a new religion, called United Universist (not related to Unitarian Universalist). This religion seems to contain elements of both Daniel Quinn and Freethinkers. On their extensive website is a passage that has become the thesis of my life:

"Universists are inspired by our evolution as conscious beings in a universe of matter and energy with nothing holding us back from eventually working our way towards utopia, or destroying everything. Universists believe that we have ultimate power and ultimate uncertainty."

• Planting Seeds - I love watching PBS in the late evenings. The specials on Black History Month are inspiring. I never realized that African-American intellectuals started planting the seeds for emancipation as far back as the 1820s. It really took several generations for the idea of "freedom" to take hold in the U.S.. Slavery was so extremely institutionalized that I'm sure both Blacks and Whites were thinking, "This is the way it's always been."

I was extremely inspired learning about David Walker (1785-1830), a Black abolitionist and idealist. I do not condone his support for violence, but I'm sure he had come to the conclusion that war would be the only way to free the slaves. The wicked institution was just too ingrained and economically viable to be given up without a bitter fight. I love how Mr. Walker published his pamphlet, titled "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World" and then found creative ways to smuggle it into the South. When his booklets began showing up, Southern states reacted by passing legislation prohibiting the circulation of Abolitionist literature (freedom of speech be damned), and they also forbid slaves to learn how to read and write. There were threats on David Walker's life, and he was mysteriously found dead near his shop — many believed he had been poisoned.

I have been for years troubling the pages of historians, to find out what our fathers have done to the white Christians of America, to merit such condign punishment as they have inflicted on them, and do continue to inflict on us their children. But I must aver, that my researches have hitherto been to no effect. I have therefore, come to the immoveable conclusion, that they (Americans) have, and do continue to punish us for nothing else, but for enriching them and their country. For I cannot conceive of anything else. Nor will I ever believe otherwise, until the Lord shall convince me.
— David Walker, 1830 (written soon before his mysterious death)

The point of this story is that David Walker was a seed planter. I like to think that myself and others in the Sustainability Movement are seed planters too, and we have to accept the fact that it may take another 40 years before our ideas for a better future take hold — and we will never get to see this Great Awakening. We must keep doing what we know in our heart is right.

• An Engineered Oil Puppet - Also on PBS this week, I saw a documentary on the history of Saudi Arabia. Okay, the point being that 9/11 was 50 years in the making, and that Saudi Arabia was used as a pawn during the Cold War. I remember vividly as a kid the long lines at the gas pump during the 1973 oil embargo. No one ever told me the embargo was ordered in response to the United States airlifting supplies to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. And no one ever told me that the Saudi's ended the boycott after America used a carrot and stick approach (the stick being a threat of invasion). Anyway, the boycott backfired on the Saudi's because conservation measures in the U.S. reduced demand, and at the same time, higher oil prices made it viable for other nations to develop their oil fields.

But the point being, is that this whole idea of a Royal Family is bull crap — "royal" insinuates that some family is God-ordained to rule. That is nonsense. In Saudi Arabia, one family is ruling the country with the backing of our country. Just how democratic is THAT??? The family gets to be filthy rich, and the U.S. gets oil. A nice, dysfunctional relationship.

A final statement from The Canary...

Getting back to the slavery thing, WHERE WERE THE CHRISTIANS during this time? Yes, there were a few Christians involved in the abolitionist movement, but where was the VAST MAJORITY (called "Moral Majority" today)? And where were the Christians during the Holocaust? Yes, there were a noted few who resisted, but for the most part there was SILENCE and even COLLABORATION!!! So, now, it's 2005 and Christians are telling me that gays are committing sins and are EVIL, but look at the track record. Where is the credibility? For the most part they were silent on the enslavement of millions of Blacks and the murder of millions of Jews, and NOW THEY ARE SCREAMING ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE???? Talk about selective morality!