The latest in a long string of mass shootings in America has hit closer to home for me than previous ones. One of the fourteen people killed during the shooting at the Inland Development Center in San Bernardino was a friend of multiple friends of mine. My wife also works for the California Department of Development Services, and friends and co-workers of hers lost loved ones.
I consciously avoid the television news, but the same stories are inescapable online so I am well aware of how this shooting is being used to further the typical narratives. Those narratives are why I am writing this, because they miss the bigger picture.
The primary narrative is that Muslims are a threat to America and this is yet another example of why we need to control Muslims. The drums of war are beating more and more loudly every day. For those of who do not realize it, World War 3 is currently taking place. You can be forgiven if you missed the obvious because we were all conditioned to believe that WW3 would be a nuclear armageddon between the United States and the Soviet Union, not a "low intensity" conflict in the Middle East. Yet do not doubt that what is going on right now in the Middle East is anything less than a restructuring of the global chessboard, a conflict designed to determine whose allies get to control which groups of resources.
For better or for worse, Americans are not willing to believe that their government has been involved with oppressive dictators in the Middle East (and other places like Latin America) for over a century now. Americans are not willing to admit to themselves that our culture of mass consumption, where we can have "anything" we want at "affordable prices" is supported by a military empire that steals resources from the rest of the world, and assassinates anyone who tries to organize opposition to it. By resources I mean, real, physical commodities like oil, minerals, water and timber.
Because we cannot believe that we support a government that supports oppression and exports violence, we cannot see ourselves as the "bad guys" and our leaders will not tell us that we are those bad guys. So, enter Muslim terrorist extremists who hate our way of life and will indiscriminately kill us in movie theaters, meeting halls, and anywhere else that we would normally feel "safe". When people are not strong enough to look at themselves and deal with their own issues, it is convenient to present someone else, something else to blame. Another group that needs to be "fixed".
I am not for one second going to go off the conspiracy deep end and say that these attacks are false flag attacks perpetrated by the United States government. At this point, the government does not need to stage attacks. There truly are enough people in the world who are angry at the policies of the United States that they are willing to come over here to attack us.
Where the government is complicit in these attacks is in their use of them to further the agenda of escalating war in Syria and the rest of the Middle East. The government is complicit in the continuation of these attacks by perpetuating the false narrative that more violence in the Middle East, that "getting them over there before they get us here at home" will some how make us safer. As if we can out violence them and pound them into submission. To realize how insane that narrative is, consider this...
The United States government has been supporting brutal dictators in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and other countries for decades. We have been involved in Afghanistan and Iraq for over a decade already. In that time, have we seen more terrorist attacks in the United States, or less? Does being "over there" seem to be doing anything to prevent "them" from coming "over here"?
In order to illustrate a few points, I am going to invoke the Nazi's and Hitler. Do you think that in the late 1930s, the average German sat down and wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to round up the Jewish people? Do you think that they wrote to their representatives and asked them to encourage Hitler to invade Russia?
Comparably, have you, or anyone you known written to your Congressional Representative and asked them to make sure to fund CIA operations to de-stabilize Iran? Did you ask them to create al Qaeda in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets? Did you tell them that you think it is a great idea to trade weapons to Saudi Arabia for oil and turn a blind eye to one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, a regime that coincidently is the incubator of Wahhabism, the violent strain of Sunni Muslim thought and practice that all of the jihadis like al Qaeda and ISIS follow?
Or like the German people, have we all just sat back passively and watched these events unfold before our eyes? Have we accepted the propaganda that these actions are being carried out in our best interests, as if our interests are the same interests of the 1% of the population who control the military industrial companies whose whole business is perpetual war and keeping the world off balance in their favor?
What does all of this have to do with mass shootings, in California, in Colorado, in where ever else they will happen next week, or next or next year? They are all related because violence begets violence. The American culture is a culture of violence. We, you and I, benefit from violence conducted on our behalves.
And so, I beseech everyone who has taken the time to read this, to take some time and think about the violence. Think about where it comes from. Think about who benefits from it. Think about what drives one person to be violent, to be aggressive, to lash out and attack someone else. And once you have done that, realize that there is an alternative. Human beings are amazing, we are amazing. We can literally be however we want to be. We can act however we want to act. For those of us born in America, we are blessed with a system of government that can represent our will. We can elect who want to elect, and if they are not up the task, we can participate ourselves and represent our neighbors, our families and our loved ones.
We have plenty of challenges to overcome here at home. The media distracts us with things going on overseas to turn attention away from challenges here in America. From people who are out of work without any prospects of finding meaningful employment that they can support themselves on. We are distracted from the insanity of a government that outlaws a plant, but supports an industry that hides the symptoms of bad life choices with pharmaceuticals. We are distracted from the fact that our economy has been disassembled and exported overseas, while fewer and fewer people at home can even afford the products produced by those who have taken their jobs. We are distracted from the fact that keeping people in prison is actually a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue every year. There are so many things that we are distracted from, because those responsible for them do not want to be held accountable for them and because it is easier for them to keep you scared and angry, than it is to promote education and the deep, contemplative thoughtful mindsets that can come up with solutions to overcome the challenges.
Yet we can choose peace. We can choose to not participate in the program laid out for us by those who are currently in power. We can choose not to be scared. We can choose to realize that we are being marched into World War 3 through promises of security and necessary actions that must be taken to secure our "national interests", and instead stand up and say, "I will not pay for the past sins of the 1% with my life, with the lives of my friends, and certainly not with the future of my children, my nieces, or my nephews." We can choose to instead spend our lives helping each other, and demanding that our government align itself with good, and right and justice for everyone on Earth.
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