TORTURE AND THE REAL THREAT

   Sadness and Despair seized me as I read a recent forwarded e-mail message from an obnoxious hockey coach and commentator giving Canada a bad name by recommending severe testicle torture to glean information from captive "terrorists.

   Discarding the fact that torture does not deliver accurate information, it is highly demeaning to the humanness of the perpetrator.  Terrorists do exists worldwide, but in a world awash with weapons of destruction and organizations intent only on their own profit, they are not limited to a few suicide bombers or the current scourge, IS.  With only months left to save us from catastrophe our task is so massive that we have no time for testicles.  Root problems scream for immediate attention.

   We humans have much to boast about, but we also have many faults, some of which are galloping us to our extinction, such as unsustainable numbers, wars, climate manipulations, and Greed.

   We all enter this brief existence with quite similar genes, 90% bacterial and 10% human.  We are vain enough to believe the human ones are in charge and perhaps they are when it comes to the harm we do to each other.  The actions of all, however, are controlled by Greed.  And Geography has dealt hands that vary so alarmingly that they cry for communal solutions.  Many have been tried under various forms of Socialism and Communism but, like Capitalism, they all succumb to Greed.

   With each generation trillions of cells are miraculously built to form each new life, our genes are formed afresh, all needing education from ancestors to survive in a cruel environment.  This education is dominated by mindsets dominated by Geography, and steps, insufficient as they might be, have been taken by the fortunate to assist the unfortunate.  That we evolved into life forms that, for survival, demanded the eating of other life forms was a bad start, but some members of our amazing species are beginning to correct this along with all the other ailments that afflict us.  But does the immensity of the task and the indifference of the majority, or should I say the opposition of the favoured few, doom it to failure because of too little too late?

   We are the only species, as far as we know, that has compiled its history.  It includes the whole gamut of good and bad.  Recorded are the 4 billion deaths in major wars, the ruthless destruction of villages, tribes, nations, and civilizations, the incredible misery piled on humans and animals.  Also recorded are inventions made, structures and civilizations built, beliefs for the betterment of humanity entrenched, adventures across, over, and under the oceans, and into space as well as significant probing into the energy and matter of which we are constituted.  We are beginning to dimly understand what, if not why, we are.

   We understand mindsets and we know how they have changed over the centuries and the amazing number that have changed just in our lifetime.  We know that we are to blame for the current 6th Great Extinction our world has endured.  Nature, with some help from microbial life forms, was responsible for the first five, but underway is Number 6 that is ours alone, affecting our climate so much that our species is at grave risk.  We can argue that the world will be better off without us, but why destroy a species that has come so far and holds so much promise?

   Worldwide demonstrations reveal that a major, and necessary, mindset is underway but how many realize how massive it will have to be with willing, hopefully temporary, sacrifices from all?  Are we up to the challenge of saving ourselves?  You and I cannot escape our own responsibilities.

   Tearing apart a few testicles can bring us only shame.  Improving mindsets and actions may provide salvation.

Ye Olde Scribe

          

10-11 SEPTEMBER 1942

   The night sky is a big place.  So are 72 years.  Neither was, nor is, sufficient for me to forget the night of 10-11 September 1942.

   Matching the unbelievable enormity of exploding shells, bomb, and aircraft, the Thoughts, that also exploded and taxed my young brain that had been a history buff and bank clerk but was now trapped into the role of warrior, burned so deeply that night that they still remain inescapable.

   A lone bullet can bring stark finality but my Wellington crew, in its Baptism of Fire, was engulfed that night in a prolonged and changing universe of exploding colour that made accurate navigation impossible.  I had no quarrel with the people of Dusseldorf, nor they with me, so why were we trapped  in a species where the few can dictate the actions of the many?  Had we not already killed over 4 billion humans, not to mention animals, property destruction, and sheer misery in major wars over the past 12,000 years?   I felt deep guilt as I pressed the bomb-release button while friends and foes alike perished.  The huge palls of black smoke that welled up appeared to be belated attempts of Man trying to hide his crimes from the wrath of God.

   This war, and all the others, did not produce the wisdom to allow mankind a peaceful experience of existence, the brief and only one we suspect we are allotted.  How highly discouraging as we do possess no shortage of brilliant minds, flourishing in all avenues of human endeavour, but still inadequate to eradicate the Greed that tolerates harm to others, be it warfare, over-population, climate change, bigotry, or what-have-you?

   Yet, we still hope and dream.  I can feel Compassion welling up.  May it become a flood that washes away the inhibitions that keep us from realizing our genetic differences are minor and desirable and that our survival demands we immediately tackle our problems of numbers, geography, education, and equality.