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Yet another, higher dose of pain
by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Sept. 7, 2005
The apocalyptic tragedy that is New Orleans is a metaphor for what ails
us.
Like an open, draining sore New Orleans is to the
nation what such an
overt sign of illness is to the body.
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We can only ignore the moral
illness that afflicts us at the cost of this kind of open evidence of
decay.
New Orleans itself is a fantasy built on greed and exploitation,
peopled with refugees of wars, those displaced by the slave trade and
infamous aristocrats, sucking at the commerce that was forced along the
channel of a mighty river.
A large modern city built at the edge of
the sea, yet lying below sea level, as if the laws of nature did not
apply to us gods. A wealthy city with a desperately poor, black
underclass that filled the hole left in our exploitative ethos when we
rejected formal chattel slavery in favor of wage slavery. A city
notorious for corruption and vice.
A city that incubated the blues
because it lived them. A city of with a self indulgent and largely
white upper class that showed no interest in the welfare of their city
and who's only plan, in the inevitable event of disaster, was to run
like hell for high ground and let the less fortunate and those with
human compassion drown, starve and expire from thirst.
A city that had
its fate predicted in detail in the morning paper years before and that
abandoned the repairs to the levees that would have saved it because it
cost too much, because it was the Federal Government's responsibility,
because it chose to support the troops rather than it's own future,
because those with influence had other plans. As babies baked to death
in sweltering attics surrounded by vile waters festooned with floating
corpses, our leaders vacationed.
A city that is the mirror image of
Fallujah, half a world away, one flattened by weather, one by fire power
paid for by the other. Nature has it symmetries. Just as the poor of
Fallujah, unable to escape, had to endure the genocidal fury of a massive
military assault, the poor of New Orleans were subjected to the
genocidal fury of Nature.
Though our disgusting pretend Christians
will blame God, we know where the blame for our suffering lies. It is
with us. We are the ones who do not love our neighbors. The
consequences are of our own making, not God's.
The Universe is kind. Believe it. When we act with such abject
somnambulant stupidity, the Universe applies a poultice of pain to our
problem so that we will be motivated to change. If one dose of pain is
not sufficient the Universe will come along with yet another, higher
dose, in hopes of awakening us to our need.
Considering the level of
conscious awareness that is evidently lacking, it looks like there is
much worse to come. Eventually the medicine will kill us.
© by the author.
What do you think?
Say it with a bumper sticker:
$3 each, or two for $5
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The Universe is kind. Believe it.
When we act with such abject somnambulant stupidity, the Universe applies a poultice of pain to our problem so that we will be motivated to change.
If one dose of pain is not sufficient the Universe will come along with yet another, higher dose, in hopes of awakening us to our need.
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