- "Our own faults". My writer friend from Florida
and I were enjoying a 'holiday' chit chat by phone. He had called to extend
best wishes for the New Year (thoughtful). Concerning the events of the
day he remarked that "it's our own fault". He meant not only
those issues on a grander scale but those things happening within our own
communities. By omission or commission we have only ourselves to blame
for the grave state of affairs.
- As to environmental issues, I told him that it had never
been my area of expertise, to which he responded, "it's a matter of
common sense'. Yes, common sense, a rare attribute in today's pilfered-poisoned
pockets of destruction. Mangy Tom Cat corporate hucksters, marking the
territories that they have deemed expendable in their onward 'Quest' to
secure the filthy blood money that assures them of the continued good life.
Under the guise of invented words, corruption, fraud, scams, rip-offs,
stealing, subterfuge, deception, lies, malfeasance, insatiable grasping
greed, and disguised benevolence, all is made 'technically' loopholed and
legal.
-
- The coiffured Tom Cats stalking into small areas of economic
desperation or rural powerlessness soon scent the way for the small town
alley cats of no particular pedigree; who would never make it in the sewers
of big city living. These diseased parasitic scavengers are devoid of any
attributes of conscience, trustworthiness, integrity or loyalty. In the
shadowed stench of WasteWorld; the ripping and tearing of malignant howling
has each out for the scraps thrown from the ruptured bowels of society's
millions of tons of excesses! Wheeling and dealing in the Speakeasy's of
the nether-world of one armed bandits, roulette wheels, a throw of the
dice; has lands, contracts, stock options, payoffs, bonuses, jobs, elected
and appointed offices doled out to those who've proved themselves to be
beyond the trite and maudlin affairs of values, conscience or character.
Salivating, grabbing, pushing, or craftily cunning, never satisfied, they
prowl and stalk the Game of withering maggot infested filth malevolently
eying the pot of billions just beyond their grasp.
-
- Brief cased minions, Tom Cat pimped lobbyists, legislative
lackeys, and regulatory brigades keep the Game layered, obscure, convoluted,
and incomprehensible to any threat of literate concern. Newspeak, corporatespeak,
legalese, jabberwocky, doublespeak and esoteric meaningless abstract babbling
assure players immunity from the messiness of law, policies, regulations,
or standards. Closed door secret meetings see to the transfer of
deeds, bids for bankruptcy, bonding issues, site survey applications, testings,
tonnage, emissions, taxes, leasing, mergers, gross vs. net, generating
capacity, turbine manufacture, and any and all future liabilities. The
unwashed intrusive few, who might stumble upon this pit of gnashing greed
are dutifully dealt with by the specialty Toms assigned as bouncers.
-
- Schooled in the more philosophical--psychology of handling
riff raff; they use the tried and true maneuvering and manipulations of
threats, labeling, ridicule, mockery, isolation, patronizing, condensation,
and impersonation. These masters of mind games, are a breed unto themselves
with the required attributes of egotism, arrogance, elitism, cruelty, callousness,
intellect and a sniffed disdain for emotions, feelings, pain, suffering,
and the postured pleas of commoners seeking a whisper at the table. Masters
of mime, with the crushing cunning of a Python, they lure the unsuspecting,
unschooled, naive into their lairs. Wolves in sheep's clothing they are
the lynch pins in derailing, sidetracking, and persuasion in leading the
unwary round and round in circuitous dead end futile pursuits, all the
while pretending a solicitous tsk tsk disappointment.
-
- One is put in mind of such soulless characters, as Saruron,
once leader of the Wise in Lord of The Rings, succumbing to the temptation
of the Ring. While people themselves are not just good or evil, or as the
Elvish Loremaster Elrond says, "Nothing is evil in the beginning.
Even Sauron was not so." These men, in every community, in every walk
of life from the military industrial complex, to the international global
corporate plunderers, made choices. Whether it be at the small town scale
of compromising one's neighbors or on the global stage, we are none
of us immune of this disguised benevolence. From heralded local economic
development to world treaties and International Monetary Fund/World Bank
(see Colombia-India-Venezuela-Mexico-Indonesia et al) schooled masters
of mime lead astray the masses into enslavement, environmental horrors
and destruction. It is simply a time for the naive-the unschooled-the ever
trusting or sleeping, to awaken to their perilous predicament.
-
- Someone asks Aragom, in Lord of the Rings, "You
know Aragom, how can a person judge what to do in times like these? Aragom
replies, "As he has ever judged...Good and ill have not changed since
yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another
among Men. It is our part to discern them."
-
- "Nothing is evil in the beginning". Yet, Sauron
once a leader of the Wise had succumbed to temptation; how much more so
for the alley cats of our local domains enticed by the lure of money, power
or position? Whether we look to a small mountain town hall, the city bricked
towered town treasure, the granite enclave of our state capitol or the
marbled gilded edifices of power in Washington D.C., are we so blinded
that we cannot see or so deaf that we cannot hear the Saurons who have
compromised all that is decent, good, loving and honorable for ill gotten
gain that will see the ruination of all? Yet each man kills the thing he
loves. By each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with
a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the other with a sword!
-
- And thus we protest, march, petition, plead, wring our
hands, tell our poignant stories of suffering and desperation to the Saurons
of the world. To the Saurons in our local backwater enclaves or in drummed
peace gatherings; with the Saurons mocking and ridiculing behind their
walled, guarded, barbed wired enclaves! The Saurons, who for all intents
and purposes are beyond hearing; having succumbed to temptation's lore
so long ago that evil's cesspool has swallowed the light of humanity's
love, kindness, gentleness, genius, gifts and talents. "One Ring to
rule them all, One Ring to find them. One Ring to bring them all. And in
the Darkness bind them in the Land of Mordor where Shadows lie."
-
- "Washing one's hands (or escapism) of the conflict
between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful
and not be neutral." Paulo Friere.
-
- It is simply a time for our energies to be expended not
on railing against the shadowed-barricaded-secret meetings of the mangy
alley cats in our communities, nor against those of unbridled might, money
and power; who plot and plan world conquest in boweled bunkers of unimaginable
evil but like the Hobbits of Tolkien to stop the destruction of the earth
in fellowship one with another.
-
- Lord of the Rings is a study in mankind from the smallest
community to the loftiest position. Tolkien mixed myth with reality in
his message. He knew the horrors of war having served in WWI. He knew the
destruction of his idyllic rural England with industrialization poisoning
his Hobbit domain! The Hobbits were rural folks living unto themselves
(much like we before the Tom cats arrived) separate from the greed, corruption,
and power struggles that consume greater mankind. Frodo the Hobbit, is
Everyman. He is part of a race of beings who live in an agrarian society
and stand between two and four feet tall. Never let stature denote the
power one is capable of! Otherwise they are perfectly Ordinary in every
respect. Tolkien says about them, "they like to have books filled
with things they already knew, set out fair and square with NO contradictions".
No double-speak permitted! Hobbits knew everything about each other's business,
but they knew next to nothing of the outside world (much as we) which is
just a blank space on the borders of their maps.
-
- The sedentary life of the Hobbits is interrupted when
Frodo inherits a magic Ring. Gandalf tells Frodo that the Ring is a tool
of an ancient Enemy. The enemy named Sauron sunk half of his power into
the Ring before losing it in a battle three thousand years before Frodo
was born. Sauron, cast down has risen again and is forming an 'army' to
challenge the kingdoms of Middle Earth. Frodo and 'friends' must leave
the complacency and protection of their idyllic-bubble-circled lives to
stop this destruction of the world! Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, like Beowulf
is one with deep roots. This is not an exuberant adventure, of a simple
Simon story of good vs. evil, or a story for children. It is sad, even
elegiac; it, is,like life, quite unpredictable and scary; and it speaks
to deep conflicts, longings, and feelings of spiritual isolation within
the human mind.
-
- Tolkien was sickened at man's irresponsible actions during
the industrial age that ravaged that which was once a land removed from
corporate elitists corrupt 'dominion'. The Hobbits, representing Tolkien's
childhood remembrances, are no different from those people across the globe
suffering the brutality of today's insatiable greed that surpasses all
reasoned logic. It is convenient to keep to oneself in one's own private
domain (the elitists do in their private pristine retreats) denying the
daily destruction. Seeing we see not, hearing we hear not. To undo the
evil it is necessary for us to go beyond the unmapped boundaries of our
circled domains and UNDO the great evil which in the end will leave no
person untouched or immune.
-
- Tolkien wrote, "Atomic bombs! is so horrifying one
is stunned. The utter folly of those lunatic physicists to consent to do
such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world!!
Such explosives in men's hands, while their MORAL and INTELLECTUAL status
is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates
of a gaol and then saying that you hope "this will ensure peace".
While no religion (purposed) is identified in the Hobbits pilgrimage through
the course of evil, the spiritual is evident in the many theological questions
and mysteries that arise. We encounter resignation by some of the principal
characters that although they have free choice they are not the authors
of their own destinies! and there is speculation that small actions, may
have consequences beyond what would be rationally foreseen.
-
- Evil has it's place in the affairs of men if only to
have one given the 'choice' and to show forth the goodness and power that
one is capable of under great duress and impossible odds. In one passage
Frodo asks why the powers that be did not execute Gollum, a corrupt character
who was recently in prison, but had escaped. Gandalf responds, "Deserves
it! Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you
give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
For even the very wise cannot see all the ends."
-
- Not unlike today, or any age, the greatest struggle the
fellowship endures is against themselves. Can they stay the course, not
COMPROMISE and remain true to their ideals throughout all the strange unknown
perils that lie before them? With the help of the Council of the Wise,
they had decided on a course that was quite revolutionary! The Ring they
have is, after all, a weapon. Just as Sauron wants to use it to enslave
the world, the Hobbits and their allies could use it to defeat the Dark
Lord. But,..yes but, the POWER of the Ring is corrupting, and whoever attempts
to use it in imitation of Evil will, in the end, become Evil himself. (a
spiritual principle-you don't control or contain evil once embarked upon,
despite your intellect...it controls you).
-
- Rather than use Sauron's weapon to defeat him, Frodo
and his fellow companions have decided to UNMAKE the Ring by casting it
into the fires in which it was forged. In this way they hope to catch Sauron
unawares and break the cycle of violence that has repeated itself for centuries
with all the apparent inevitability of doom! Think on this.Throughout the
centuries great massacres, famines, village pitted against village, nation
against nation, neighbor against neighbor. All masterfully orchestrated,
these multi-millions of ordinary folks, to annihilate, imprison and
vaporize each other for those sitting in the shadows; the puppet masters
in their war rooms waiting to reap the profits of their evil conquests.
And the masses marching to the tried and true drum beat of nationalism,
religion, patriotism, flag, liberty, justice, democracy, freedom, promises
of shared wealth, or an after life of virginal-palace plenty; like programmed
robots obey orders to murder over and over down through the saturated blood
soaked centuries never the wiser?? Perhaps this should be our quest? The
unmaking of this cycle of ignorance destroying all!
-
- The Hobbits decide on this course of breaking the cycle
of violence even though it has never been tried and no one can honestly
hold out much hope for its success. It isn't a decision not to fight---preparations
for war continue---but rather it is a decision on HOW to fight. The most
difficult business in The Lord of the Rings is unifying the people of the
world around this goal; the goal of not only resisting the Dark Lord, but
resisting EVERYTHING he represents. Here is wisdom....In the words on one
character, "In nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly
shown than in the estrangement that DIVIDES those who still oppose him."
Look around you. What do you see but estrangement; a divide and conquer
mentality amongst Blacks, Whites, gays, straights, men vs. women rights,
property rights, school costs, immigrants, terrorists, evil lurking everywhere
et al. It works!
- This is a spiritual quest. The fellowship must find for
themselves the reasons which are WORTH sacrificing and dying for; they
must hold fast to those reasons though all manner of adversity-mockery-criticisms-threats
and temptations and to succeed they must find an inner strength to accomplish
feats beyond anything they could have previously imagined.
-
- Their "choices" are necessarily made from limited
knowledge, and often require soul searching and a leap of Faith, but the
rightness of those 'choices' is a tonic for those who struggle to see the
moral and even spiritual ends of the 'choices' they make in the "real"
world. There is a "real" distinction between right and wrong
in CHOICES we make, and that distinction matters! Good and ill have not
changed since yesteryear; and though current events might belie the fact;
they are not one thing for impoverish rural folks and another for the pampered
elite. It is up to us to develop a spiritual acumen to discern them.
-
- Tolkien thought that thinking about myths and legends
could help restore Clarity of sight and give strength to those who struggle
to find meaning today. Tolkien and his 'friend' C.S. Lewis, once an antagonist
argued this point on myths. Lewis remarked that the stories of Christianity
were myths and that like all myths they were lies, although "lies
breathed through silver." Tolkien responded this is not so, that human
beings create myths because they are made in the image of a Creator, and
by imitation my come to know more of the Creator's mind. The Hobbits adventures,
experiences and overcoming great obstacles in faraway unmapped places prepare
them to find and confront evil doings in their homeland---acts of fraud-corruption-duplicity-compromise
and environmental devastation in a place where nobody cares very much about
magical quests or believes in Dragons. Tolkien thought that the real purpose
of escapism was to 'awaken' the mind, uncloud the senses, and rouse the
spirit. And there it is! A world not of computerized, annihilating weapons
or microwaves melting people! A world where ordinary-everyday Hobbit peoples
can realize strengths and feats that they never thought they were capable
of. We are "Everyman" called to be bearers of the Ring, to undo
the evil!
-
- "Nothing is evil in the beginning". If the
circle and generations of violence is to be undone, we protest wrongly
against the Saurons who have succumbed totally to the evil. To undo it,
the message must be gotten to the 'divided' factions, to those whom the
'few' in power need to do their dirty, slaughtering deeds, to fight their
wars, to slaughter their own peoples. It is those in masked uniforms with
clubs on shields who protect the Saurons who need educated, who need to
be made aware that they are mere pawns, cannon fodder, flunkies, being
mindlessly programmed and conditioned to commit the impossible against
humanity. If there were no armies, no mercenaries, no guards at damns and
oil pipelines, no men dropping vaporizing bombs....the Saurons would be
rendered impotent and powerless. A skeptical character asks Aragom "Do
we walk in legend or on the green earth in the daylight?" Tolkien's
answer was that it is possible to do both, if you find and explore the
makings of legend in your own life.
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