[I wrote this essay back in 2008. I didn't think my thoughts were still relevant, but, perhaps, things have not changed.] Considering the new peaks of medical knowledge and technology we are approaching, coupled with a desire, although coerced at times, to bestow our communal compassion unto all unfortunates, physical survival is quickly becoming a moot point. Life has shed its part as prey in the natural hunt for survival, and instead has assumed the role of livestock. Our needs are met as long as our bodies are able to endure the labor to keep the farm running and the landowners well fed. This trudge towards social retrogression goes unhindered and unrecognized by the majority; and, sadly,is paved by us, the unwitting plebeians. Prey, unlike livestock, at least attempts to flee from the predator. We risk plunging into a relatively desolate civilization rather than securing a worthy civilization, one which would not have the sole intention of maintaining the comfortable, affluent lives of a minute few. We ignore an idyllic world removed of cruelty and injustice. A dream that lies not far from our grasp. Oblivious to the gardens of content, we wander through the finely trenched path leading towards serfdom, towards chains tailored from green cotton fibers. A path snaking down the jagged face of a mountain carpeted by sharp precipices. With each step down, through means of one's own volition or not, the speed towards the bottom rises aggressively. What drives these leaps? Do they derive from internal or external interests? Our emotional responses lead us to irrational behavior and to hasty judgments our visceral instincts stubbornly support. At times, it is understandable to resign to these primal urges and flee from hostility. Collectively, humankind behaves similarly when presented with a clear and present danger or even at the persistence of the existence of such an entity. Populations allow for unnatural laws to preside over them to counter these, often mendacious, threats. In certain occasions, the species voluntarily leaps down, but masses can be forcibly shoved down to guarantee safety from an impending doom. If we are to proceed back on a course of genuine progress, we shall have to oppose these licentious forces. While our emotions can be recognized and calmed, forces that wish to interfere with our judgment arise in unexpected forms. By means of deception, these mildly-terrorizing blitzes of malignant fallacies present themselves as solutions under a banner of compassionate progress. No long stretch of time in the life of humankind has passed where one group of humans did not put into motion their design of becoming their neighbor's master. Each newly arrived national peril, while at first shocking and demoralizing, must not make us blind and deaf to the approaching steps of our rapacious neighbors. Their unhurried step does not, initially, give way to agitation or fear; conversely, it is accompanied by a soothing message of transient gratification mistaken as a permanent solution. The peril we, as a nation, find ourselves in cannot be circumvented with an unscrupulous endeavor, of which some are clamoring to execute, that only means to hasten our fall. The ironic twist to this tragedy is that those that propose this scarcely expedient solution, are those that wielded the pecuniary bludgeons that pummeled our economy, our savings and our investments. Regardless of their intentions, should we be represented by individuals that ultimately brought us to this economic and social grievance? Their success of being reelected or appointed to positions of ever-growing power seem more plausible than their shackled presence in front of an impartial judge. Unfortunately, justice, our ostensible measure of fairness, as it is practiced, holds no accountability for those given the controls of our nearly omnipotent collective power. These civil servants will not be charged with reckless governing and possibly benefiting from our suffering. Americans, albeit in few numbers, labor to pay their bills and vote for the next president; therefore, some might find it specious, or a pretext for a novel, that such forces can have a detrimental impact on their lives. Yet pain and suffering grows. Knowing we are being ruined and used, we should not follow the steps of our fathers and grandfathers and their fathers, etc etc, that ultimately submitted to this fate. There are those that would rather us forget the past and focus on a ever-fleeting better future. Are we to envelop ourselves in a yoke of ignorance of all the familiar warning signs glaring at us from the past? The arrogance of the contemporary mind boasts of a definite and absolute conquest over an uncivilized past, but such disdain for the past will only quicken the decay of our resolution to persevere on a real progress of humanity. We must throw off this illusion of sitting on a throne atop the apex of social evolution. We must accept the fact that this is not our destination. We still reside on a land infested with individuals of our own kind who would rather see us on our knees. One should not endure such a calamity with a calm and steady demeanor. Democracy, while an effective tool of the people, even when it moves at a snail's pace, is subject to being frequently sequestered. Our prudence, while wise on its own accord, has no place in our times. Now is the time for anger and unrest. These forces have pushed us far from equilibrium. These forces will only respond to a compelling and united reaction. Without much difficulty, a perspicuously orchestrated speech can lead a credulous mass down a treacherous path by citing ominous verses of impending doom. These verses, intermingled with an underlying theme of hope, seek to render in its audience a deaf ear to the doubts of the skeptics, whose shouts of warnings are dismissed as being radical and impractical. With all the opposing voices hushed to an ineffectual level, the word of hope nullifies the silent doubts found in each of its listeners. Once the rigmarole vehemently seizes the subdued audience, rhetoric is quickly reversed and the harsh rays of reality streak over the horizon, wakening all from a deep slumber of ignorance.
