John was recounting the most recent episode of his endless pursuit of sex; earlier today he had found a particularly choice morsel online, whom he hopes to meet later. <\/p>\n
“Do you know that we live in a country that is the modern equivalent of Nazi Germany?” I asked.<\/p>\n
“Of course!” he replied without hesitation. This surprized me. <\/p>\n
“Do you care?” I knew the answer, but as I asked the question I realized, with a horror in the pit of my stomach, that I was face to face with the very demon that will destroy us. <\/p>\n
“No, I just want to find some hot piece and…” (Risque drivel omitted.) <\/p>\n
The demon is our apathy. We tolerate state-sponsored assassinations, justifying it by narrow illogic that fails, fantastically, to recognize how it duplicates the crime. At the same time as we abdicate our responsibility to oppose such crimes, we are also forfeiting individual liberties under the fiction that state control of the individual will somehow preserve individual liberty. This is an obvious contradiction, but we don’t care, as long as we can maintain the American Dream—a home, a car, a comfortable life. Secret trials take place, and individuals are unconstitionally imprisoned, but we refuse to recognize these crimes because the victims are not americans—not entitled to the dream. And we don’t care as we cling to the disintegrating tissue of our dream. <\/p>\n
There was some relief in recognizing this demon-apathy. Knowing the cause of the disease, no matter how intractable—even when the prognosis seems hopeless—is at least an anchor-point in reality. Truth, no matter how unpleasant, is where hope must start. Built on any other foundation, hope will fail. <\/p>\n
From there we can begin to hope—if we are to hope at all<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John was recounting the most recent episode of his endless pursuit of sex; earlier today he had found a particularly choice morsel online, whom he hopes to meet later. “Do you know that we live in a country that is … Continue reading