A DOLLOP OF HOPE

It was December, 1976 and I was in an upscale restaurant in Manor Park in Kingston, Jamaica, when I learned my checking account was overdrawn.

I called my sister-in-law who worked at the bank that provided that checking account; she told me that the account was overdrawn because six checks had been submitted to the account together, checks that I had given to her husband in the middle of that year.

He had asked then that I do him a favor; he had recently been employed as a salesman for a Company that sold health insurance and needed as many sales as possible to secure his job.

I told him that I had adequate health insurance coverage through my job and could not afford at that time to pay for something I did not need and would never use.

He persisted and advanced the argument that the plan would cost about Eight Dollars per month, a negligible amount so I acceded to his request and gave him six checks to pay for the first six months of the plan.

I thought nothing more of it – until I learned that those checks had caused my account to be overdrawn, a circumstance that might have left me in a very embarrassing position with regards to paying for the food I had ordered but for the fact that my girlfriend was happy to cover the charges.

When I got the copy of the statement for that checking account in January of the next year, it contained the six checks that proved beyond doubt that these checks had all been submitted together.

It was years later that I had occasion to broach the subject of that betrayal with my brother, who flatly denied that this had occurred; from my perspective not only did he exploit the generosity prompted by our close family relation, he compounded that act of treachery by denying that it ever happened.

Worst was to result, when I found myself stranded in Memphis, partly because of this incident and to punish me for exposing family skeletons, he refused me his help, all the time denying the fact that he abused the generosity that I had extended to him, and tacitly denied the fact that for all of his life I had been generous to a fault in all things.

In effect he was saying that he would only help me – if I accepted his version of reality.

Despite the fact of which he was well aware, or should have been well aware that my life has been dedicated to telling the truth; that as a result of this dedication and endurance that I had achieved moral consistency and would never have leveled and persisted in leveling such a false accusation at any human being, and certainly never a member of close family.

I have been deeply troubled by this incident and it has caused me to contemplate the nature of social reality and how human beings twist reality to suit their ends.

It made me even more keenly aware of the impact of political, social and economic power on what people believe.

As I write the people of Lebanon are under attack from the State of Israel, horrific incidents are occurring for example the air raids on Qana that have resulted in multiple deaths:

The UN secretary general has called on Security Council members to take urgent action after 54 Lebanese civilians were killed in an Israeli attack on Sunday.
Kofi Annan spoke at an emergency meeting on the "tragic" events in Qana.

He asked council members to put aside differences and call for an immediate ceasefire - which is opposed by the US.

More than 30 children died in the Qana attack - the deadliest Israeli raid since hostilities began on 12 July when two Israeli soldiers were seized.

The strike has drawn strong international condemnation and, correspondents say, given a new urgency to diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. (BBC News Report)

These attacks are justified by the need to destroy Hezbollah, a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of the State of Israel.

The question arises, is the State of Israel legitimate?

Any serious attempt to resolve this conflict must begin with an in depth and objective examination of the origins and development of this nation?

History records that the nation of Israel was destroyed by the Roman Empire in the second half of the first century after the birth of Jesus Christ, after several failed uprisings by the Jews those with Imperial authority for this region solved this problem by slaughtering large numbers of the rebels and erasing the nation of Israel triggering the first Diaspora of the Jewish people.

The second circumstance in understanding the truth about the current situation is that even while these events were taking place the Gospels documenting the Ministry of the man called Jesus Christ were being written, and those who were compiling these Sacred Texts decided to record that Jews, not the Roman Empire, were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

As later events were to prove, the Roman Empire had no compunction about slaughtering Jews who agitated or engaged in rebellion against their empire, indeed, history documents the savage means used to suppress rebellion and dissent by early Imperial power; despite what is recorded in the Gospels, the facts of history makes it probable that Romans, not Jews, were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

This is relevant because the persecution of the Jews in Europe down the centuries after the Diaspora was justified by the belief that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ; though these pogroms may have had much more nefarious objectives, to plunder and pillage a rich minority, or, the even more politically opportunistic expedient of the Jews being a ready scapegoat on whom to vent hostilities engendered by the failures and inadequacies of various and sundry wholly incompetent Absolutist regimes during this period.

These horrific acts culminated in the Shoah during which six million Jews were killed by the Nazi regime, a crime against humanity which European governments did little to prevent.

Near the end of the Nineteenth Century these attacks on the Jews precipitated the emergence of Zionism, a movement that promoted the return of Jews to Palestine and the rebirth of the State of Israel.

Funded by affluent Jews and having large numbers of members motivated by the harsh and unrelenting hatred applied to Jews in Europe, this movement enjoyed some success and established the Kibbutz Movement; wherein land was purchased in Palestine to be settled by Jews fleeing from animus in Europe.

This return to Palestine of Jews began early in the Twentieth Century and as these settlements increased rapidly in number and as the situation worsened in Europe the Zionist dream came closer and closer to being reality; that a state would be created out of land bought from Bedouin Emirs who from time immemorial had engaged in a nomadic existence roaming the arid and inhospitable lands of Palestine with their flocks of sheep and goats.

At the end of the First World War the British Empire gained control of Palestine and the stage was set for an event unique in history when at the end of the Second World War the world became aware that six million Jews had perished in Nazi Concentration Camps.

When the British decamped Jews in Palestine, composed of Zionist pioneers and refugees from the concentration camps in Nazi Germany declared there was a State of Israel, an act unique in world history, a quirky unprecedented event even in the context of a world of bizarre injustices created by the application of the might is right doctrine, a matrix shaped by the interests and conflicts of European powers.

Most of the social and economic problems that exist today are a legacy of a European Imperialist system; the poor in the Third World are heirs and hapless victims of colonial policies that ostensibly were designed to bring Christianity to the heathens of Africa and the Americas, but which in precept enriched the colonial power whatever the misery, suffering and death experienced by native populations.

Consider the horrendous contemporary effects of the Triangular Trade that exported trade goods of poor quality and questionable value from Europe to Africa, which traded these for human cargoes which were transported from Africa to the Americas, and finally transported sugar, cotton and other valuable agricultural products from the Americans to Europe.

The Jamaican economy is exposed because it was a plantation economy whose single purpose was the production of sugar for the Mother Country, Great Britain, suffocating and making completely unnecessary and superfluous the development of any other type of industry, one of major factors that render irreversible and perennial the poverty and high rates of unemployment that plagues this nation.

The conflict in Palestine has the same genesis, it is a problem wholly created by Europeans which is now the burden and source of interminable suffering and despair of Arab nations.

In the interest of objectivity I must emphasize that this is the consequence of the roles of territorial predator and prey embedded in human culture at the beginning of the human story, any society finding itself with the military power would have treated as prey weaker human societies.

The war in Iraq hews to the same model as the conflict in Palestine, and uses the same method of distorting reality to suit his purposes as my brother attempts.

It was a war made possible by lies; there were no weapons of mass destruction, no evidence that Saddam Hussein was responsible or associated with the 911 attack, no hard evidence that the Iraq government was a sponsor of terrorism.
Americans who believe that Saddam Hussein is guilty of genocide against his Kurds, have short memories that prove my hypothesis about the effect of repression that facilitates the utilization of unlimited coercion; they conveniently do not remember the genocide perpetuated by Americans against Native American populations in the Nineteenth Century, the annihilation of the Sioux, the Comanche, the Apache, the Nez Perce, and many other too numerous to mention native American tribes.

I say again, though it is becoming likely that I will never overcome the repression of any individual – because to do this requires action by that individual, they must accept the discipline of truth:

The nature of social reality was determined at the beginning of the human story when human beings became habituated to relying on coercion in their relations with the other, this determined the nature of human culture that the dominant roles of that culture would be territorial predator and prey; that beliefs would be opportune, that they would conceal interests.

For many millennia this culture was functional, the facts were superfluous in a social milieu in which might was right; but when limitations were placed on the degree and extent that coercion could be applied in any situation the method of distorting and twisting the facts opportunistically was exposed because the ideas produced by this method could not support function.

There is less and less function in every social institution, but even as this becomes more and more apparent, this method continues to be popular because it supports the status quo and the interests of those with economic, social and political power.

This method has become self perpetuating because no individual or organization can confront the reality; this method is employed by every individual creating information that must be repressed, the Bush Administration cannot confront the reality about the Iraq war, nor can my brother confront the reality about his treatment of a close family member who was doing a favor, nor can the State of Israel confront the reality about its origins and development, so the human race cannot understand its past and repeats this past, again and again and again.

We blindly stumble from conflict to conflict, from tragedy to tragedy, a race without a future just the past happening again, and again, again trapped in a maze of lies and deceits that is ever expanding; a massive fiction on which our very existence is based but which can never support function.

It is clear that practice of the discipline of truth is a far, far superior method based on the results.

On the face of it the expulsion of Syrian forces from Lebanon was a diplomatic victory for the Bush Administration, but is it possible that the Syrian forces that occupied Lebanon were performing the same function of a buffer between the Israelis and Hezbollah that the proposed international force will belatedly perform after all the carnage and destruction of recent events?

Can the Bush Administration ever be right, and can I ever be wrong?

An article entitled “Testimony of a Voice of Peace (Part Two) published on the web site voiceofpeace.net dated April 25, 2005 contains the following:

In Lebanon, forty per cent of the populace is Shiite. Few can be unaware of the intense conflict and instability that wracked Lebanon - prior to the Syrian occupation. Will the Syrian withdrawal precipitate an increase in conflict and catapult Hezbollah, the Shiite Party, to power in this country?

A long time ago, I characterized the actions of the Bush Cabinet as being like a bull in a china shop; President Bush is, in precept, a leader who is all heart and no head, someone who is unable to perceive the possible negative consequences of his actions. This is exemplified both by his invasion of Iraq, and, the intense pressure he is exerting on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. Both policies seem to lack the rationality, the objectivity, the stringent and detailed analysis that would make them functional.

History has taught me that Absolutism was generally a terribly oppressive system, but that there were some monarchs under that system who were wise, benevolent, generous, and enlightened, who had many positive effects on the people they ruled. It is very clear to me that President Bush’s preparation for leadership was deficient in many respects, he was never exposed to the horrors of war for one, and he has not read enough history for another. He is completely incapable of perceiving that as malefic in its effect, and unjustified as his occupation of Iraq was, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon may be something else. If one has the flu, or accidentally cuts themselves badly, most individuals know that they need to seek medical help. The problem is that President Bush may be afflicted by a mental malaise that he is completely unaware of, and for which he will never consider getting help.

As I said, it is unlikely and well nigh impossible for me to overcome the repression that insulates the vast majority of human beings from reality but the deaths, the horrific deaths of the children at Qana leave me no alternative but to continue to compare and contrast the different intellectual approaches available to human beings, the difference in results between the ‘beliefs are opportune they conceal interests’ approach, and ‘the truth shall make you free’ approach, in the perhaps futile attempt to bring to an end the seemingly endless march of horrific scenes that interminably resonate in my consciousness as I watch news reports from the Middle East:

Civil war is the most likely outcome in Iraq, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad has warned, in a confidential memo to ministers obtained by the BBC William Patey, who left the Iraqi capital last week, also predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines.

He did also say that "the position is not hopeless" - but said Iraq would remain "messy and difficult" for the next five to 10 years. (BBC News Report)

An article published on the web site voiceofpeace.net on April 24, 2005 contained my predictions on what would occur in Iraq:

With the American puppet regime in charge the Shia Party garnered 47 per cent of the vote and 140 seats in the Assembly, with a Shiite Prime Minister in place, they should expect to achieve 60 per cent of the popular vote in the December elections.

They only need to sit tight while the Allies whittle down the Sunni insurgents, ironically, the group that is the most Westernized component of the populace, the bulwark against the tendency to create a government similar to the one that rules in Iran. After the December elections and as soon as the Shia Party has a strong enough grip on the country they will request that the Allied forces depart, as President Bush promised to do as soon as a democratically elected, constitutional government was in place.

In projecting the type of government that will eventually rule in Iraq, we need to examine the character of the strongest cleric, the Ayatollah Sistani, the man who has never allowed contact between his person and the invading infidels because they would contaminate him, the man who ratified the names on the list of Shia candidates. When the infidels depart he will emerge from the shadows to take control of the second largest pool of oil on Planet Earth.

The attacks on Shia mosques and the killing of Shiite supporters strengthens his hand, it will force the Allied forces to combat and destroy the Sunni insurgents, the bulwark against Muslim Fundamentalist control of Iraq, and it will justify repression of the Sunni minority when the Allied Forces depart. Which they must, soon or late, as the political movement for the withdrawal of Allied forces gains momentum, fed by the fed by the deaths of soldiers in what will increasingly be seen as a lost cause, an exercise in futility precipitated by the greatest and most expensive Presidential blunder of recent times. When the Occupation comes to an end, the remnants of the insurgency will be brutally repressed likely with arms and aid supplied by Iran.

It must be clear that one perspective, “the truth will make you free,” produces ideas that are adequate to the existing reality and that could be the basis for finding workable solutions to these problems; while the other “beliefs are opportune, they conceal interests,” is wholly unrealistic and will result in these problems becoming worst; with the conflict in Lebanon dragging on until it becomes the harbinger of the clash between civilizations that the Indonesian President predicted; with the Allied Forces sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire that Iraq has become.

It speaks to the difference between two cultures, between traditional coercion based culture that was buttressed and obscured by pronouncements that had no basis in reality but which were accepted by the people as unassailable truths – because dissent was violently and cruelly suppressed; and, democratic culture in which the degree and extent to which coercion can be applied to any individual is severely limited and societal function depends on creating ideas adequate to the reality.

It is clear that my brother, the Bush Administration and the Israeli government are acting as human beings have been habituated to act over the many millenia of human history; they are distorting and twisting the facts to suit their interests, a method that has become anachronistic because they do not have the means to coerce acceptance of their propaganda, to stifle dissent, and to produce function.

Western civilization is at a crossroads, it can either continue to hew to the traditional world view, to attempt to preserve the status quo; or, it can renounce coercion as the means relied on to motivate the other, and the myths, delusions, illusions, ways of thinking, attitudes and patterns of behavior this has produced and enter into a whole new world by adopting positive reinforcements as the means used to motivate the other and embrace the culture that this change would engender.

We can either continue to use repression as a crutch, as the excuse for all our failures and inadequacies, or, we can tell the truth and create a sphere of liberty.
Confronting the existing reality is not easy, it is much easier to see the world not as it is but as we want it to be; this will be a development as dramatic and far reaching as the difference between an economy based on chattel slavery and one based on free labor; I have full confidence that it can be achieved by any human being because I have achieved this transformation, and if I can do it anyone can.
I see my past, in which my mother was the most important figure and influence, as it was.

I remember, with a clarity undimmed nor obscured by repression, that personage locking me in a foul run that contained large ground lizzards when I was little more than an infant, as a punishment for some minor infraction; I remember the intense fear that filled me as the lizzards crawled closer and closer, the tears I shed and my plaintive cries for release that were ignored.

I remember the fights we had that seemed to last for hours, the beatings that she inflicted on me, her hands around my throat throttling me, the scratches her nails left on my body.

I remember her visiting her mother at a stable for racehorses in Kencot, a small neighbourhood in Kingston, Jamaica; I remember her visiting his home and being left to play in a dusty yard as she went inside, and after a seemingly interminable interval seeing a window open into his bedroom where I witnessed her sitting on his bed.

I remember another of her paramors who was a cricketer; I remember the assignation between them that took place at his home in Four Paths, Mandeville after a long train ride to the beach.

I remember the shame, humiliation and intense doubt about just who my father was; that dogged my childhood and teenage years ellicited by the fact that the name of her first lover, whom we visited at the stable, appeared on my birth certificate and the birth certificates of all my siblings, in the section reserved for the name of male parent.

Most of all, I remember, her final departure from the household consequent on her receiving her green card, and that she purloined the most valuable item in that household when she left.

It was a chest of antique silver purchased by my father’s sister as a wedding present in Holland; when my mother left my siblings and myself were deprived of parental control and guidance because my father was never at home, I also witnessed my mother compounding her numerous and manifest infidelities by stealing from the family.

I knew that she had been deported from the USA, that she made little of that setback and returned to that country using false documents and under a new name Mavis Williams, that she renounced the name she had been christened with, Mavis Albertine Chung.

I came to know that she was likely guilty of bigamy; that she had not divorced the old Chinese gentleman, a marraige that her father arranged for her when she was sixteen years old, that the subsequent three marraiges she contracted were therefore acts of bigamy, but no act of hers was more debilitating than the fact that even as she abandoned us she stole the most valuable item in the household.

If telling the truth can cause me to attain moral consistency and wisdom in the conduct of my affairs, it can do the same for anyone.

If telling the truth can cause me to penetrate most the Stigian gloom of the propaganda that pretends to be the truth in coercion based societies, even those that pretend to be democracies, it can do the same for anyone.

I have been rejected by my family, have been rendered solitary and alone, doomed to suffer without help, or support or relief, many successive bouts of poverty, not because I have committed any crime, or done anything wrong, nor because I was less that generous or every failed to assist them, but because I told the truth and this has made me different, this has caused me to attract the animus not only of strangers but has cost me the love and support of family and friends.

During these three decades when I have never know safety, when I never knew when I would be catapulted into the dubious and painful embrace of abject poverty in defense of some principle or the other; I have been sustained by the knowledge that there was no other course open to me; I have had only had one real regret that I had not the ability to communicate better, to make my message clearer because telling the truth made this abundantly clear to me.

I could have chosen a side, I could have used my ability to describe the reality to aid one of the competitors for social, economic or politcal power and so ended my pilgrimage, I have not done so; I have remained relentlessly albeit quixotically, committed to the common good.

Revealing the truth about my family and friends does not threaten them, is not in any sense an act of malice; because if my ideas were given the attention and prominence they merit, each individual who understands this world view would appreciate that it completely absolves every individual, every organization, every institution of blame for the most heinous crimes, that it holds that they are forgiven, that they did not know, because their ability to know was lamed by repression.

For example, if I were to use information about my mother as a lever to coerce the support of my family, I would swear out a compliant and transmit that compliant to the Clerk of Courts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; to embed it an article is to ensure that it will be ignored because for any media to lend credence to anything I say is to threaten the entire system of deceit, obfuscation and propaganda which buttresses the social system in which I live.

My message does not threaten, though it may seem to threaten the unenlightened, instead it a message of love, compassion and one that would enable humanity, one that would create a future for humanity – if the ideas are applied.

It is directed at those individuals who can find it their hearts and minds to support the common good, those who have the courage and will to tell the truth, those who passionately desire freedom.