If we can learn anything from the seemingly unrelenting horror of the past week it has to be to not sweat the small stuff.
Finding gratitude in the mundane and banal; the little things in life that truly matter.
If you went to sleep with a full belly and a stable roof over your head last night you went to sleep a winner.
Far too many did not; the only ‘loser’ status they can be ascribed is becoming pawns in a geopolitical quagmire - a terror-driven atrocity - fueled, funded and carried out by extremism and brutality.
It was not resistance to colonial oppression - or any other of the dorm room platitudes designed to make one side the victim and cast the other as the occupying aggressor.
An assertion by the way that doesn’t hold up to fact or focus but has found a home in the narratives being sowed online.
The oppressor of the Palestinian people is HAMAS.
What happened to those young people and innocent families was an act of brutality and horror designed to terrorize and exterminate a people.
That is not said to disregard the suffering of innocents caught up in this madness.
The way people reacted to the heinous barbarism of the butchering of women and children by immediately trolling Israeli-empathetic posts online and repeating the tired anti-Semitic tropes they learned in memes and on college campuses from folks eager to be ‘down with the cause’ without doing their homework on a complex and frustrating situation.
My guess is most do it out of ignorance and a desire to impress or simply get attention online.
There was also the misinformation juggernaut that X turned into in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, with Elon Musk promoting alternate ‘news’ accounts that were monetized accounts looking to promote antisemitic disinformation for clicks and cash - all under the purview of one of the world’s most unstable men.
I left twitter for good after that and will no longer share content there.
Our vitriolic reactions to the apparent ‘both sides’ ism of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict online is not unrelated to the national trauma we have experienced coming out the never-ending Trump nightmare and the divisive nature of social media itself.
If you spend anytime online it feels like America itself is sitting on a powder keg - as many on the fringes, at the radical extreme of political thought, play with matches.
We need to remember we are one people first and foremost; at our greatest aspirations, one love.
It’s no wonder our greatest prophets through the ages have counseled a non-violent approach led by compassion, understanding and unity along with an overarching goal rooted in always stretching towards our better angels.
Far too many on our planet right now are suffering in unspeakable ways.
We are here to love, anything else is waste of this brief moment in time we get to follow that favor. Choosing to pursue a fortune or fight instead is a waste of a human life; the miracle of our condition is that choice is seemingly ours alone to make.
Free will is at the core of any genesis story; when that will is bent towards desire, avarice, revenge or resentment however, the paths invariably lead into the darker chambers of the human heart.
It seems only an awareness of our true nature and a deepening of our compassion for others bring light and any lasting salvation or peace.
My first thought when I awoke last Saturday to news of the attack on Israel and began to see the carnage on television is that now there will be no peace in my lifetime.
The antagonistic rhythm of the centuries that leads to so much discord between men and women is marching on.
Handed down like generational trauma.
Hate and ignorance become the raw materials for building fortresses of resentment. Reactionary dungeons built from character defects in which no soul can escape without the light of love and awareness.
And far too many would rather keep us in the dark to enable their own cruel thirst for power.
The extremism we have seen rising up in this world, not just overseas but domestically, is the greatest threat to peace in our lifetimes.
The fact that this is all occurring under the menacing and lethal clouds of climate change - where we can only survive as a species and save this beautiful earth if we work together to reorient the narrative - and seeming lack of urgency, to cast off the yoke of fossil fuels which are quite literally choking and killing us.
And making heartless men very rich, no matter the suffering of the masses.
Or at least begin to be honest about that fact.
Humanity needs a win.
The brutality and barbarism of the last several years have left us all yearning for a moral victory or an antidote to the unmitigated horror we see, or worse, experience, in our daily lives.
Whether from the environmental catastrophe or the ravages of war and terrorism, it’s mind-numbingly awful and unrelenting.
What could possibly undo such darkness?
Only love, only solidarity and brotherhood can change our collective outcome now.
We need a spiritual transformation that goes beyond religion - while making room for them all.
We need an answer to war that can provide a lasting peace - and the only way to get there involves love.
A new diplomacy of the spirit that sees no child go hungry and no political powers benefiting from peoples’ continued suffering.
Simple to say - yet seemingly impossible to achieve - when it comes to any sense of global harmony.
Maps, borders, cultural and religious divisions have separated and embattled many into generations of dysfunction.
No side truly wins in such disharmony; perhaps even those in power will suffer under its weight in the end.
Politics becomes aligned with venal opportunism and malignant egos - backed by truckloads of cash from industries and individuals that want to continue their stranglehold on economic systems that exploit the many while enriching the wealthiest one percent.
Divisions between progressive elements of our society are being exploited now in the same way red state/blue state voters were being heaved into a cultural divide by a grifting conman who wants nothing more than to burn American democracy down to save his own ass from the crimes he so flagrantly committed while in office.
And before that time and beyond it.
Trump openly gave away Israeli state secrets and intelligence operations to the Russian Foreign minister in the Oval Office.
It was one of his first acts as POTUS and perhaps one with horrific implications that we are only just seeing come to pass in the present geopolitical catastrophe.
Trump also had the temerity and Adderall-fueled bluster to insult not only President Biden but the Israeli Defense Minister who he called a ‘jerk’ while praising the Hezbollah as ‘smart’ should they decide to attack Israel from the North.
Basically a former POTUS cheering for the start of WWIII because the nation that was attacked praised his political rival for offering comfort and aid in their darkest hour.
Trump did this because he is incapable of feeling empathy or sorrow for the victims - or even a modicum of understanding of the complexity of the forces at stake and history of this conflict.
He doesn’t have the slightest care about any of that, only that his malignant ego be constantly fed and praised so he can continue his criminal pursuits with the blessings of the brainwashed cult that still buys his bullshit.
I was proud of President Biden last week, his empathy, clear compassion and resolute support was a bright spot in a week so dark I doubt any of us will soon forget.
We also are clearly in a new era, much of it uncharted; we need leadership that can navigate such roiling seas with a deep and abiding faith in the inherent goodness not only of Americans but humanity itself in the coming weeks, months and years.
Someone who has not only been in the pit of despair himself but in fact knows the way out.
We should honor those we have loved and lost by orienting ourselves towards a north star that shines for the betterment of all humanity.
And for a better world, be well.
Hear-hear! Well said!
Hear, hear!