Fear Factors

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February 19, 2016, Prescott- This week has been a bit rough, although work resumed for two days and I did have a nice dinner with friends, last night.  The difficult part has come from the number of attacks, two of them pointedly personal, that have come my way this week.  Last night, I received a written death threat, which I take only mildly seriously.  The person in question has neither the physical or financial wherewithal to put an end to my life.  Today, someone on another medium said that, unless I supported building a wall on the Mexican border, I was not entitled to claim citizenship.

We have devolved into a “my way or no way” mentality.  It’s not just in the United States, that this is happening.  Europe is finding itself overwhelmed.  India and Indonesia are experiencing the resurgence of religious fundamentalism, to say nothing of what is going on in Africa and western Asia.  Mexico has been rigid, in not letting migrants come in from Central America, or from Cuba, for that matter.  Even a small nation like Nicaragua puts those seeking a better life, in detention camps.

Otherwise good people are turning on others, mostly out of fear- that their livelihoods will be lost, that their families’ safety will be at risk and, more existentially, that all they cherish and believe will be upended.

I have three thoughts on this whole phenomenon.

1.  Remember the French Revolution.  In a nutshell (no pun intended), the common people rid themselves of leaders who looked upon them as less than human.  After that, there was no game plan, except to continue the carnage, until the Revolutionaries had decimated their own ranks- and Napoleon stepped in, restored a monarchy and only slight improvements had been made in the public weal.

2.  “The Earth is but one country, and Mankind its citizens”- Baha’u’llah

We do best to see all other people and nations as our relatives, by extension.  There need to be rules, sane and intelligent boundaries, and no one should enter another’s home, without leave of the owner.  Each family, city or town, county, state/province, and nation is entitled to having its boundaries, and its laws, respected.  Nonetheless, there cannot be the sort of racism or ethnocentrism that only perpetuates misery.  There also cannot be the economic colonialism that demands people in one country suffer, so that people in other countries can indulge themselves with habit-forming drugs that foment death and destruction, both for the people around the producers and for the consumers.

3.  Everyone is entitled to seek the truth of spiritual, intellectual and metaphysical matters for themselves.

Groups have arisen, from ISIS to the American Tea Party, that rely on fear and loathing to keep their agendas moving forward.  Again, I refer you to the late, unlamented Jacobins.  The Ku Klux Klan, Khmer Rouge, National Socialists, the “Know Nothings”, and various tribal armies-of-slaughter, throughout history, have followed the same path- sometimes with deadly violence, other times with the violence of the mind.  In both cases that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my response was immediate- I will think, and speak, for myself.  I have served the United States of America, and will not give up my citizenship; nor will I ask that of my critic, who was born here, also.  I will follow my own schedule, protocol and regimen, with regard to my daily life, and not give in to threats, of any kind.

The challenge, before us all, is to put fear in its place.

15 thoughts on “Fear Factors”

  3. Gary — whatever is going on in your universe? “Today, someone on another medium said that, unless I supported building a wall on the Mexican border, I was not entitled to claim citizenship.” If that is true, there are approximately 50% of the citizens of the US who can’t claim citizenship — how ridiculous a statement! And I hope that the death threat has nothing to do with either political or religious beliefs. Somehow I can’t imagine anybody so angry with you as to want you dead (except perhaps the vagrant that you tried to help last year, and certainly not over a stupid political issue like a wall)! This year’s political cycle has been terribly divisive, and I have a hard time envisioning some of the candidates behavior translating to “presidential,” but it’s not, and should not be that personal.

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  4. Gary, you have a voice and use it. I greatly admire that. I liked the reference to the Jacobins and Napoleon. Be cautious–people who seem not to have money may be into drug distribution and have money you don’t know about or may have influence over others. I hope you are right. Take care!

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  5. in rumi I believe a wall was a blessing between neighbors. it also represents a construction project employing many for defined lengthy times just as historic dam building 3-4 generations before or even more built for years the power and the golden age of I don’t care I go to work and come home and the money’s good. this triggers a book again… 1962’s silent spring to later have song illusion…”farmer farmer put away that ddt now, I don’t care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees PLEASE” which fundamentally establishes the epa sweeping away a generation because….here’s a notion? critical thinking and scientific evidence shows flaws in indiscriminate usage becoming ultimately far more hazzard ridden in the long term… short term versus long term. red versus blue. i’m hungry now and i want my american dream! not to protect it for another to steal it later….besides what future is there if I can’t have the good jobs now for my next generation to not starve to death? critical thinking… but this brings about the keystone pipeline relvant in roughly 2012 colorado but also nationwide mention about the energy crisis… not much talk of that withgas oline at 1.xx a gallon in much of america now is there.?. anyways keystone pipeline- it meant to build a pipeline for the production of tar slate or whatever extraction of far less easily sought after fuels / products because in large measure because of the high costs of oil in the sixties and seventies… or threats therewith… well imagine if it’d have passed and russia took over portions of it’s national interests in ukraine i.e. the “money” and now gas is not 3.xx but 1.xx a gallon… the pipeline would be useless with a 30 year tax repayment for us but who would care as the workers built it and the money siphoned off into the economy? many are still angry that critical thinking not the reality of cheap gas again but just general projections crushed that mostly on enviromental grounds…hence the anger, all this sissy nancy talk about the en VI ron Ment screw it, gimme a paycheck. – this brings us back to the wall. silently or not oppose it. it’s fine by me and may god protect you for being a voice that not all ideas are ultimately without reprocussions that are well worth weighing before foolishly acting. but in this age the books like the jungle- upton sinclaire… thought of as a muckraker and damned by the leadership of the times like theodore rooseveldt for being? muckraking… well it did serve to horrify the nation and bring about practices in place today to inspect this food resource independantly for the people at our expense when otherwise it’s not sanitary and no oversight exists… that and silent spring call into question the free weilding capitolism first by making worker’s lives not better but opening the doors to the thurough entrenchment of the afl… a union and the idea of the closed club of america which paid very very well but dried up and the union people slipped away…sorry allentown, billy joel and the coal dried up and the union people crawled away- the graduation hang on the wall but they never really helped us at all because they didn’t tell us what was real, iron and coke, chromium steel. .. but such is as it is it isn’t golden out there where graduation to grave there is a great paying job out there for all or so and so’s and they’re angrier about it. someone owes us and or these people steal from us…where’s ours? so to that wall, oppose it if you feel it’s not the right call- it only encourages tunnels and lazy garrisons with fancy toys and cars claiming to save us from the enemy…which at that point is usually ourselves. viva critical thought and of course I hope you’ve no further chances at god’s teachings of others so desperate as them threatening your life to proove your god aloud…but if such brings a brother to the faith… so be it. please do be aware the worst is too a blessing perhaps even for you.

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  6. I only just finished listening to a podcast on which they discussed the false dichotomy fallacy, something your rude friend should listen to. The podcast host is doing a series of episodes about fallacious thinking. Interesting. The name of the show is You Are Not So Smart (YANSS), in case you’re I interested.

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  7. Gary, If you need to hide-out you can come to ‘the home’ and stay with the elders until things settle. People can be so odd and rude. Unlike myself… heehee. As always, it was a delight to see you last night. The Usual Suspects look forward to visiting gain in the future, provided you are not building a wall so you can remain in the country of your birth.

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