Requiescat In Pace

A strange thing happened to me the other day. I think I blew my "outrage" fuse. It was the one that enabled me to care about the fate of another species: man. I'm not quite sure what the catalyst was. It could have been the far right's attack on a 12-year-old boy that was aided by the conventional press, it might have been the discovery that only a couple of weeks after George Bush took office (and a full seven months before 9/11) he was already ordering warrantless searches of people's telephone records, it's possible that it was the fact that the top economics experts are now predicting a crash bigger than the Great Depression, or maybe it was the knowledge that although everyone is perfectly aware that people are destroying the world's climate stability, and with it the basis for civilization itself, no one cares enough to actually DO anything about it.

Perhaps it was just the overwhelming volume of it all, but I've decided that being a bear in a human world just isn't working. I've tried and tried to make sense out of the human race, but nothing can explain the inhumanity I see all around me. So I'm going back to the woods and hibernate for the winter. It might be that when springtime comes and there's a fresh crop of honey in the trees, I'll feel better. But for now, I don't think there's any hope that mankind will grow up enough to stop its headlong rush into oblivion. I don't know if the world will be better off without people, but I do know that it can do a much better job of taking care of itself without them.

After all, I'm only a little bear and even I know you could have done better....

Bullied and cowed...

Ghandi showed the power of peaceful protest when combined with world opinion. By being willing to sacrifice their bodies, and sometimes their lives, Indians shamed the British into turning the government over to the local population. It didn't happen overnight, and it took a lot of people willing to stand up for their beliefs, but it happened. Unfortunately, peaceful protest doesn't always work. The slaughter in Myanmar is highlighting what happens when the government doesn't care what the world thinks. I heard a CNN news reader tonight state that the first thing a dictator does in the face of opposition is to remove hope.

That got me to thinking of our own government, and how it is that in spite of polls showing that over 70 % of the general population wants a change in the direction of the Iraq war, nothing is being done. On top of that, it seems to be a foregone conclusion that the President will invade Iran before leaving office, even though most of the voters don't want this to happen. Why do we allow this? Because we've given up hope.

Just how long are we going to let this group of thugs bully us? Is this the shining example of democracy that we hold as a beacon to the world? What's it going to take to wake you up? Do you actually just not care anymore? We might as well forget democracy if we're going to let the government do whatever it wants.

For goodness sake, I'm only a little bear and even I know we can do better....