November 15, 2015 - Austin, Texas. Finished great shows in Oklahoma City and Seattle - House concerts hosted by friends who care about their communities. Margaret and Dan in Seattle on the 8th - champions of justice in the battle for the lives of youth; Mike and Carol in Oklahoma City - heroes of neighborhoods seeking to create a better city from a near-past that nearly destroyed that town. Radio with Phil Andrus and Eva on KTPZ in Port Townsend was also a kick. Two interviews, great stories, fun music... I'll be back in Port Townsend in late October for a couple of shows for sure and now with new friends! Thanks to you all (and don't forget to donate to KTPZ!) The cross-country trek continues: Austin tonight, New Orleans the coming week, then Florida, Philadelphia, DC, Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota and then a drive back home to Alaska (Mom's joining me for that!)
Few took me up on the challenge at the end of my last entry - how do we deal with this ever-changing world - one where the patterns are beginning to show? I wish I had a less clunky way to communicate these things (other than one that wasn't limited to 140 characters like Twitter). Sometimes at a dinner (like tonight with friends Paul Schomer, his sister Amy and her husband Keith) I unload these thoughts and the dialogue (perhaps bordering a bit on a rant), crystalizes into a vision. Now, in the shadow of Paris, voices already muted fade into sad cries of anguish. Where will our next pain come from? What war is being fought here? What drives this deep-seated hate?
The commentators say it is Islam, religion, and the perpetrators echo that call, but there is no God that would see these acts of slaughter as some kind of ticket to heaven. That is a lie masking something else. But what is that something else? Why would young people - youth of a certain age and ethnicity or religion - choose to shoot and kill the innocent, maim humanity, take their own lives? Who so doubts the value of life that they destroy it randomly? There appears to be no moment of doubt. The path is chosen, the trigger pulled, the result certain. And yet there it is - on our screens. The consequences already unfolding: no more refugees; borders closed; ground troops from France in two weeks... If it is so predictable, why can't it be dealt with? What are the roots of the problem? Does anyone meaningfully ask? Or will we forever politically posture...
The pursuit of wealth, of power, of fulfillment of desire, rips off the masque of humanity from the leaders of this death cult leaving bare this visage of... nothing. No moral belief in humanity, certainly no real claim to spirituality. Instead it is a nihilistic view of the world, of life (though even saying that gives it much more meaning than is deserved). They prey on those who have nothing and no prospect of a future, victims at every turn of a world that rips them off, demands bribes, assaults them, hordes the wealth they produce, leaving them a prognosis of a slow death from starvation.
With no hope for themselves or their children, they cease to value life. And then there is a promise: "You give up your life; you go after those who have done this to you, and those you love will benefit. We will take care of them. You will wreak your vengeance in the name of God and in your death your family will thrive". And the author's of this? They believe in nothing. They twist the moral certitude found in these desperate survivors that the life of their own child or family is more important than their own, and they offer them a way to provide for that family within the context of the last thing they hold dear - their God. These incipient "authors" are nothing more than abusers, cruelly manipulating those of moral character to an end that twists their belief and that only serves the "authors". What do those "authors" get out of it? Power, sex, thrills, wealth... Whatever they want. All in the name of a false piety.
How to dissuade someone from taking a path that has been so effortlessly presented to them? A path that so pushes back against the Sisyphean weight of their existence? The only answer is one our political systems will never provide them. The must have hope of a future for them and their families; a vision of a future that matters. And this cannot be a false hope. It must be real.
I wrote a line in a song once ("The Wave") "Where are all our moralists and all our leading hearts...? While the unnoticed keep on dying, they're building walls and shopping marts..." And that's the rub. If you want to have people value the lives of others, you have to provide them an opportunity to value their own path in life. The one who does the best job of offering a realistic future wins. For example, how could someone in the Assad regime ever hope to succeed?
Tired of the corruption of the state robbing their future, at first people protest peaceably. When Assad strikes back they believe they can take their future in their hands and the revolution turns violent. To Assad power is more important than the lives of his "citizens" so he levels their neighborhoods. Without homes or livelihoods the last vestiges of hope disappear just as they watch the state disappear. Westerners wring their hands and say "if only they had left the strong man alone...". But they did not. We encouraged them in fact waving the hopeful flag of democracy only to snatch it back when things went South. Because that's how we always seem to do it... It helps us sustain our apparent beacon of possibility and hope. A beacon that now appears to be nothing but a mirage.
The irony of Paris is that it will lead to the end of the refugees flowing into Europe and that won't punish those who have given up hope - those who killed those innocent people - it will punish those who still have hope and have chosen a path, a desperate but real path, toward realizing it. And then, after we take that from them, where exactly will those two million people go? What exactly will they do? Who exactly will they turn to?
Tonight Paris mourns and I mourn with her. But what can I do, or you? You see it's not up to us. The resolution of this rests with those who have the power to create a hope for the future for those who have lost hope. That means that those who can will have to give up some of their power, their wealth, and practice their humanity. So the question then is really this: do our leaders believe in humanity? And the answer to that question is the only one that matters.