Maybe today

Last night I went to see the African Children's Choir with my little son Simon who is just six tomorrow. As we watched, Simon sat in my lap and marveled at the wonderfully colorful costumes, and the sounds and dances. To see such joy and exuberance come from that lot of children was splendid.

As I watched, the joy I felt turned to anger and then grief. All the children told of the circumstances they lived under before they became part of the African Children's Choir. I just sat and cried during this part of the show.

I am so happy that they got out of their circumstances, but at the same time so angry that other human beings can bring such criminal and cruel acts upon other human beings. All I can think about is greed and it's power over a few. I think about the insatiable nature of greed, like a form of insanity, bringing rationalizations to the mind of the one possessed by it, helping to create the misguided world we live in today.

A few people, most of the US included, have all the wealth. Instead of sharing the wealth, even through a fair trade of work for money, the very rich hoard their money -- I assume for fear if the masses are allowed to gain any wealth at all, the power of those few very wealthy will be diminished, if not directly threatened.

I just can't stop thinking of the hope inside each of those talented children for their future, and the audience's enthusiastic warmth for the children's testimonies and proclamations of what they hoped to be when they grew up. What beautiful laurel encircled their fertile imaginings.

But for a few, all the suffering could end. Sure, there would still be degrees of want and need, and there would still be natural disasters, but if it weren't for those few whose miserly grip on wealth and power pervert their eyes, ears, and hearts to such a degree that they become the deliverers, not of a more prosperous and inspired underclass, but an incarcerated, deprived, and starving lot, hungering for justice.

But it's not just the wealthy who are to blame. They use the same old tactics time and time again, to the same ends very effectively. After all the masses have something that the wealthy don't; MASS.

But somehow they are goaded into this alternate reality where the wealthy one just intrinsically has all the power. This of course is not true. The wealthy are given the power by the unwitting choices of the ever compliant masses. The control the wealthy and powerful have is all based on how fearful they can get the "great unwashed." It doesn't matter what they're afraid of, they know if they just keep throwing stuff out there sooner or later something will stick.

Fear of terrorism as our wonderful OIL TYCOON leader keeps barking. Fear of starving, fear of losing your house, fear of losing your family. Yes, they are very, very, efficient at keeping the masses afraid. As long as they can do that, they can keep the masses in line.

Maybe today is the day I'm brave enough to stand up and stand out against the droning masses and speak truth to power. But isn't it more important to speak truth to the masses? To shake the cocoon that so surrounds them and keeps them nice and cozy and complacent and compliant?

Even now, the greed has gotten so out of control, people are starting to reach a level of discomfort that will finally bring them out into the streets. But alas, what will come of it? Minor concessions at best, just enough to make them shut up and go back home.

My wish is the great mass would reject these abysmal overtures and persist until they get what they should really be demanding -- majority rule. I'm afraid this is a lost concept. Unfortunately, too many in America really don't expect it to work anymore. I fear that lack of expectation will be the death of us all.

The corporate entity -- that vast machine -- has taken over the democratic process, in a way not unlike that portrayed in the movie "The Terminator." The machines take over, they see us as a virus and we need to be destroyed -- at least the ones that can do the most harm, the intellectuals, the artists, and the philosophers. After they've eliminated the threat of reason, they'll enslave the drones, the ones they've broken, to employ in the enterprise of profit for profit's sake.

Maybe today is the day I'll choose to walk to work instead of driving my car, or be brave enough to go to jail for not paying my taxes because my government funds war and shame all over the globe with it. Maybe today is the day I will plant my own garden with seeds I have saved from a time gone by. Maybe today is the day I become worthy of democracy.

Maybe today is the day I embrace the infinite mobility of the mind and dare to envision a future where children are no longer the "collateral damage" in wars waged for greed, and warriors are no longer the fearful.

Maybe today I can ask myself, what choices do I or don't I make, based upon fear. Don't I owe this simple thing to the children of Africa, the US, and every other nation with leaders who exploit and kill their youth for the mad dementia of greed?