We see them every day. We interact with them daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute and yet we have no idea how subversive of a foe they are. We have no idea how their subversiveness allows them to snake their way into our lives and set the stage for utter ruin.
We smile we nod, we touch and yet we have no idea of the plague before us.
We tend to call this enemy out as 'them' or 'forces at work' some might even call them 'The Beast', but the true story is that we already know who this foe is.
We just choose to ignore its identity, for you see the true name of 'The Beast' is us.
It is ourselves and everything we participate in. Like many things that ill our culture, our societies, and our lives it exists very often without us even knowing it lives. It's tentacles are wrapped around us and yet we have no idea of its snares. If we want to put a face on the enemy we need no look any farther than the closest mirror.
You see 'The Beast' is the growing capitalist consumer culture we have bred ourselves into. The need to own more, to have more, to eat more, to consume consume consume. It is the air that lends a nature to take, rape, pillage and move onto the next resource to destroy. We feed this beast every time we transact and participate in it.
And really even the most ardent progressive person is guilty to some degree because of The Beast's pervasive nature. That I am even posting here what will become a few hundred thousand bits of digital ones and zeros will assist in feeding into the The Beasts gaping maw another heaping load of coal ripped from a mountain top. That I am sitting in a chair made from a foam material represents another barrel of black crude sucked through The Beast's straw. That same barrel defended with such animosity using men and women thrown upon The Beasts machinery of war to be ground into dust.
Every day millions of people participate in 'The Beast's' operations with every button push, key turned, and food consumed. So slick has this operation become that people have become blissfully unaware of the costs of their consumption. Sure they recognize another dollar there, dollar here; but they have no idea of the costs to others. They fail to recognize that in every dollar spent, of that dollar, some cents goes towards lobbying, some towards cruel treatment of workers, some towards lining the pockets of men who wouldn't give their bladder relief to put you out should you be on fire.
With such talk it is very easy to loathe oneself into despair. Defeating this foe seems far too insurmountable as to be neigh on impossible. I contend otherwise. I think it will be possible, though we might never kill this beast, we just might be able to lock it back into its cage. Lock it into a container so that we can calls the shots on the when and where it might be on display. In effect, we can cage this rampaging bull in our china shop.
But the task is on us and us alone. We must make aware to everyone what consequences our decisions make. How one purchase can have such ripple effects on our communities, our states, our nation and indeed the world. We must make known to others that very insidious people rely on us to make very simple decisions with our collective wealth, both in material and spiritual.
For only when we truly realize who we are, will we finally understand what must be done.