Select Page

If we do not grasp who our true abusers are, we do not understand why we are victims, or often know that we are victims at all.

The sheep pens of humanity are filled with people who think they are victimizing and being victimized by each other. But they are not the source. They are the grunts with rifles and bombs and machetes, forced by conscription or blessings or praise from the masses who only parrot or put into words imported fears and hatred. These kernels of sin within each of us are invoked and provoked by a VERY small number of people who most assuredly know better — and don’t care.

This is not the supposed 1% it is so fashionable to facade our envy with self-righteous disdain, although a FEW of those people are very much of whom I mean. There is no label for them. It is not a company, or a country, or an ideology, or a religion, or the influence of some Dark Prince. It is not a political party, and many of these people have never held office. Many have. But it is a POLITICAL 1% — across the entire spectrum of purported, pandered values — who distract us with fake targets of disparity and culture war, religion and political correctness. They play the role of Hero, of Savior, Kings of Promises and Good Intentions.

But they are not any of these. They set the world as their personal stage, and we are their audience, cheering for them while the people in the back are removed, row by row, to be strung up with rope and bled behind the curtain. Some are slaughtered in front of our very eyes, and we cheer because the Play is the Thing, but it is not the conscience of the king being caught. It is a purchase on our certainty of borrowed beliefs that, in outrage and undue passion, stir us to play parts our hearts would never have written for us.

But, over time, the transcriptions of prejudice and side-taking in all its forms overwrites the Divine code. We become Machine Men, marching all too faithfully to a conscience we can no longer discern is not our own. Even those who suspect the deception, with a shed of free will remaining, chose only among carefully crafted rhythms prescribed by unknown Masters. The availability of conflicting paths is taken a testament to our ability to decide for ourselves, yet to the watchful it is further evidence of the scam. The strings of all puppets — no matter what they look like in front of us — trace back to the same, few hands.

Not all of us sit quietly and watch the play. We squirm in our seats, knowing what is the show and what are the very much real consequences off-stage. Our hearts intact, we have a regret and mercy for those made to wear black hats as well as white. This does not sit well with our neighbors, who think us naive, or even complicit to evil because we do not condemn who we are told to. We are hesitant to take any side, because we know the game is rigged.

And we look over our shoulder, wondering when our row might be up. Our friends may be the escorts to our own end, for our own good or theirs, so they will say and believe with sad but fiery conviction. Even brother against sister, and child against parent, are not impossibilities.

What to do? It is a rare thing to make Men of Sheep. We can only hope to tend our own gardens in the hope our “weeds” will creep along and through the fences of the boundaries of our natural influence. I would gladly free my soul from this personal Bastille with the merits of action. But I know not what form it would take.