Dilemmas Portrait

Leslie T. Lox

A Dilemmas Portrait

God created a giant to watch over wayward man, to guide us through change; from toil to success ... luck to love ... When we cannot see the road ahead the giant guides this dark hour to dreams of fiery Martian sunsets; star clouds and wonderous things we have no name for. Religion tries to relegate this guidance but man silent to its truths invites castastrophies that are unimagineable. And while no one welcomes suffering and conflict, they are such suductive quandaries that we have lost not one but several steps on our journey ... unaided by our silence that smothers progress. As so, the giant, mystical and geometric must wait to reveal that character and reason and not money are our true measure  
The serenely giant is called ethics and it contemplates “This Picture”.

My office above  in Cape Town South Africa.

This Picture

      I offer you that it is dark but it is not night. The smoke has blackened the skies numbing the eyes path to the mind to what was happening … and New York wasn’t alone. Chaos had visited just about every major city in the country; they were enflamed, lawless and their citizens were rebelling.

      How ironic to be made a slave then told you were fighting for your freedom by the same people who enslaved you. The equation works only when thought is prohibited. With slavery; reason, reading and thinking were/are not allowed. Save for death, slavery is the ultimate cover-up for an agency's most vile offenses. It was powerful con for Wall street’s insider trading debacles and other financial conspiracies. It is for us now strong con also for the descrepences within some of our own institutions in which we invest our trust, our spiritual and social fortunes. It quiets not only an institutions misdeeds but our lack of response to them. So too, for many angencies, their resumes include fraud, unscrupulous revenue recognition, tragedy, treason and the managers personnel whims. Greed has birthed a revolution and its residue of slavery was/is redefining common sense - literally.

      Slavery now, more than being economically based, was/is for Americans the result of the greed, power and control people sought over and against each other. It points to an idividuals sense of powerlessness, but that's a separate discussion. With the uprising I describe below, the populace as subjects had been told that they were no longer slaves but had become soldiers and were ordered to fight for the cause of freedom. The oxymoron disarmed the spirit, blurred the line between common sense and delusion but any objections by now could be too late.

      Confirming those reports, a preacher somewhere the Sunday before, should have said it was Autumn but instead called it the Apocalypse. It offers the above pretense ..., but under what authority ... and why so for some and not for others? For you, the reader and myself, the reality of these statements surmise that certain individuals in our community along with their cohorts in their ivory towers on Wall Street were/are the major perpetrators of the offenses responsible for the "rebellion". It explains why we, here on the ground, in this analogistic picture being offered, do not see our civic and business leaders and politicians amongst the casualties and those fleeing the chaos and violence of the burning cities. Were they excluded from the penalties of their own sins? Where are they and were they slaves as well on some level? Their absence would be as difficult to accept as it was to breath.

      Fires raged on every street robbing the air of its oxygen creating a vacuum for autumns golden leaves to dance like butterflies against the burnt, broken debris around them. People dazed and coughing had to dodge clumps of broken concrete and glass trying to find cover and safety or to escape. These things were …, because greed and negligence had led to very deep and widespread corruption in our society. It was chaos, the rebellion.

Chaos

      As rioting and conflict engulfed New York City its` essential services had for a time before, deteriorated. Garbage collection had ceased, many police had left their posts - some had even turned rogue to protect their own families and communities. There were no ambulances to transport those felled from the radioactive fallout and the violence. Their sirens long stopped were replaced by gun fire and mostly small explosions throughout the city. The fires were voluminous and still increasing with many sites smoldering, all prompting the fire fighters to abandon their stations like other emergency personel. Only people with no options or great bravery stayed in the dying city and grappled for solutions while the rest struggled to escape. It had been a national uprising blamed on racism; corrupt, biased politics and business. The proof was communicated by leadership and media not given to factual proof but rather circumstantial explanations, generalized accusations, stretched circumstantial evidence that emphasized emotional issues. It created confusion and panic.

      The gun had become law. Chaos had become the norm and was the new paradigm. Only in areas where residents or small groups were armed was there order. They would be the safest ones for the time being and the last ones to go.

      Bodies were being found buried beneath rubble, behind shrubs in parks, in sewers and hidden tunnels. Some that had long been buried in walls, basements of factories and other unsuspected places were being added to by those who now lay visible in the streets. Those hurt … with broken or no limbs lay alongside them. Society was falling apart as people resorted to their base instincts. Citizens who were usually law bidding became outlaws. The revenge and political killings rose to the surface first and would match those deaths from bombings, fires and structural collapses. The stench of death was growing unbearable ... coming with disease, sickness and an almost paralyzing confusion.

The Exodus

      The purveyors must have done something terribly wrong for this to happen. I 95 was backed up for tens of miles with vehicles fleeing the crumbling cities. It was America but it reminded you of the exodus out of war ravaged Sudan and Syria - refugees carrying their belongings under their arms or bundled high on their backs. What misdeeds would warrant such a thing happening in America? Those who didn’t have cars trudged alongside the Interstate carrying or pulling their belongings in carts and wagons, each one widening the path south through the foliage. The reality of the refugee had become Americanized. 

      A truer label would explain them as “homegrown” refugees, the victims of our homegrown terrorists. The terrorists had numbers that would astound you and they had been latent for well over a decade. Now after the nuclear power plant on the Hudson had exploded threatening fallout throughout the northeast corridor they had revealed themselves, popping up in just about every city and town as well in the country sides ... in surprising numbers . The best you could say for the homegrown refugees is that they had been asleep. But there were millions of each on both sides, victims of rhetoric that crossed back and forth between truth and fiction, the audacious and madness.

Imagine that you are somewhere in this picture on I95  trekking south ... a picture formed by current events; our misdeeds, our resolve and hope or lack thereof. It is only at this moment ancedotal and fiction. Never say never.

     I 90 out of Chicago was lined up for miles with vehicles as were the highways out of Saint Louis. They would eventually meet the growing tent cities on the outskirts of Atlanta Georgia, those on sprawling stretches of vacant land with access to water and roads. It was the same in Florida, Alabama and Tennessee where the refugees also headed and would live for the unforeseeable future. Refugees in every sense of the word they fled the violence and the risk of another nuclear “accident” like the one at the power plant on the Hudson River in New York State. On the west coast, the refugees out of Los Angles endured Highway 101 south to cross the desert. They avoided the state of Texas, bellowing of succession and brimming expectant, not with riotous conflict but military combat. Canada had its own problems and closed its borders to refugees from any country.

      The exodus was tortuous. Walking along the highways as many desperate people had to do was a line five or more people wide in some places as they overwhelmed rest stops and communities along the way. Some of the communities with the limited help of the few services still operational including the government, provided rest stations along the way to ease the burden. They offered food, water and rest to the refugees who had to be discouraged from staying too long. It was a dismal episode as people were robbed or robbed others along the way. Alliances and friendships were formed as well as gangs. Small armed militias happened riviling the ones already in existence.  

      Greed had also come alive. It thrived breathing death and mania and the phrase “look out for yourself” rose as its anthem. The leading question was, how could something like this happen to civilized people? But the question should have been, “Are we really as civilized as we think?”

      Lapsing into reason would have offered that a genuine understanding of the problem is half the task of solving it. For us that would mean realizing that the basic premise of a society is for the inhabitants to bond together for protection and wellbeing. The other half of solving the problem would be deciding how they would do this. If they stick to that natural directive, the keys to being productive while maintaining their society would follow. But enter into the picture, our laxity, corrupt leaders and greed and nature’s directive is disrupted. The society will come apart at the seams and you’ll have conflict and exoduses of people with nowhere to go and nothing waiting for them when they get there. Such is the “portrait” being suggested here.

      My interpretation of this potential disarray includes a “sketch” of tent cities on the outskirts of Atlanta Georgia sprawling for a quarter of a mile with several more twenty or so miles apart. There are tent cities in Tennessee, Alabama as well as well as in other states. The camps as they are also called, number in the hundreds and are a sprawling enterprise, home so far to several million people, soon to surpass the exoduses of Sudan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan combined. There is an attempt for relief supplies: food, water and other necessities to be delivered regularly but shortages persist. There is crime with armed gangs, unanswered reports of thievery, drugs, rape, assault and murder.

Unforeseen Problem Number One

      The black church was or rather is regarded around the world by academics and economists as the main industry of blacks in America. Other than the black church we are not identified with any industry or craft or as possessing skills conducive to any particular trade or enterprise. If that is true and the arguments against it do appear weak, it would be a bleak future that America’s black potential homegrown refugees subscribe to (in theory at least). If the business most identifiable to blacks in America is the Black church, imagine that you’re a young person in this imagined refugee camp looking forward to the sun rising every morning, trying to gauge your prospects for the future. Imagine too, that if our black leaders are successful in forming our own union that it will be standing on "wobbly legs" and applying for foreign aid from the government the insurgents just tried to destroy. Thing to India's disengagement from from England in 1947.

      Had the above come to pass, upon surveying our landscape one might conclude that the better idea would have been to cure the existing socioeconomic relationships – correct them, make them strong again and flexible enough to endure whatever might arise (more ideas supporting this theme are discussed in my book "RoadWindows"). But our masses it appears, were misinformed and too easy to ignite with dialogue that was passionate because of the benefits for the purveyors and only clever and inaccurate for us.

      The exodus south for the refugees would be arduous and even terrifying with no prospects for it getting better soon. Tempers flared, people ran out of food and water, fights broke out, some got hurt and some gave up ... Would it have helped our absentee decision makers … and urged our masses to get involved if they had known that someone could sit in a room somewhere in Alaska, push a button releasing a missile from Bismarck, Idaho capable of traveling all the way to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, enter through a bathroom window on Main Street while someone sat on the stool and obliterate everything … and watch it live via satellite? It would help me but apparently not enough of us were listening or reading as I described these capabilities in my previous newsletters. The missile is less than a meter long could travel through clouds and smoke, beneath our radar if we had any and faster than we could see it. The point of this scenario is that the imaginary individuals targeted (at least at this writing) won’t know where it will hit next. Further, they wouldn’t know who fired it.

      Could it be that ours is not a plan well thought out? If we pay attention to the news and are honest with our observations we may see how our community has gradually alienated itself from some of society's major powers. It is a powerfu statement, probably more harsh than the reality and however so, this can change. Further, if so, we would have alienated ourselves from other faiths and cultures as well. It is a foul scent to leave in one's wake and while some could deny it to themselves it would be obvious to others and without remorse and change it grows stronger … until what? Could an unflattering world consensus be formed if the above were to happen? Believe it and say something or believe it not … but ask yourself, “Where in history has this happened before?”

Before fear succumbs to hopelessness, desperation is without limits

      If history tells us anything, it is that victory for the culprits in a contest such as this is unattainable. Those who are current and astute would understand that said culprits would have injured progress, lost ground and that the only goal here would be survival. Consider that with the advent of modern day slavery our society has regressed 150 years and has lost whatever progress earned over that time. Every culture has experienced slavery in a form more severe than they care to admit but for the culprits to offer our servitude as payment for their sins in modern times (if that is what is happening here) explains that for one thing, they were and are not used to power of this type to misuse it so. Further, it explains that their violations may be quite serious and graphic and too extensive to include ... Further, add to that their refusal to accept any penalties for them along with their addiction to power and we may surmise that their visionary errors bring us slavery, war, conflict and uncertainty. Conclude that if all of these things are true, they may severely compromise all of our futures.

      Note that power of this type plays out best in places where its purveyors, very importantly, are willing to pay the price for their deeds (the streets and backroads are the venues that come to mind). Traditionally the benefits from the many variations of "unscrupulous, illegal trading" along with its penalties are designed to trickle down to benefit the community at large (events that exist within every culture). It is a part of nature's equation; protocol for positions that are sometimes even elevated (according to their risks) and whose purveyors occasionally enjoy some influence within our community. If we think of where we are trying to go, an entity representing one billion people cannot avoid a complete well thought out explanation ... 
Everyone must pay the "price of admission" to sit at society's table. Everyones deeds must be warranted and paid for ... Be that the new paradigm we seek.
 
         Dialogue points us to resolution, rather than revolution.

Modern-Day Slavery is an Abnormality

       Understanding that something is wrong with slavery's initiative begs the question, why do we stay this course? Did too many of us already know and turn a blind eye to trespasses too graphic to even mention here? Who really benefits when we “look out for our individual selves” and cause disarray amongst the things and the people we are familiar with? Where will this take us? How strong is our bliss when we conquer another’s spirit? Do glands secrete, do body fluids increase flow … does it arouse? I’ve always wondered how rape and sex fit into a conflicts dilemma … but it does and the reports of rape and gang rape in the refugee camps pictured would be burgeoning.
       How important is the polarization of feelings in the slave/slave master equation? Surely it was the ridiculously unequal distribution of wealth within this still growing socioeconomic equation that helped lead up to it. The very important widening gap between the rich and the poor provided the vacuum in the space between, and then created an addictive pretext for maintaining it. 

      We should have paid more attention to the conversations on this financial relationship before it stole into our lives and denial of its residue set in.

     It must be an abnormality that creates the obscenely rich and poor resulting in class wars and then prohibits people from negotiating away from its inequities and pursuing a fair peace. The issues must be severe when the culprits are unwilling to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and unwilling to negotiate solutions to them. Here they resort to slavery and trafficking. To arrest slavery’s proposed “currency” those adverse to it would have to position themselves accordingly (and that means all of us). Finally, if those who are opposed ... cannot adopt an effective strategy to address our pertinent issues and our enemies have superior resources and power ...  what can happen if we are all in one place?

All that to get here

Problem Two

      The great failure of slavery many leaders initially failed to realize is that it will undermine the world economy. When we have a group that can go into the ground to mine a countries resources without costs; process the materials for free; invent and develop the machines to do it for free; build the factories for free; then market and sell them without overhead, we are talking about a serious slave based economy. It is a horrific life proposal for even the professionals that would fall under its spell. It will undermine the present world economy on all sides of the equation the resulting devastation of which may set the stage for unimaginable conflict. The pictured offered is that the total of society loses, literally.

      Let us hope that an awakening will come before these things happen. Perhaps an idea is awaiting as twilight tempts the sun past one of the American refugee camps stretching the panorama. Smoke from the burning cities up north has followed the refugees, luring the sunset from orange to violet to pink . It dims the tire tracks and footprints turned mud paths ... tween tents, soiled and leaning from the rain. Steam is rising from the cooking fires competing with the foulness of dogs, horses and overflowed portable toilets. Flies are everywhere. Women are tending to the pots, sitting, stirring listlessly. Someone must be thinking the question, “How did we get here?” Another … “Who will speak up?”

Leslie T. Lox, author and principal of The Potential Enterprise Company. Please view my publications on leslielox.com  

Ethics is the strategy of true power. Live the strategy