February 21, 2007

I’m channel surfing daytime television and stumble briefly across The Oprah Show.  Today, she guests Bill O’Reilly who is in the middle of talking about what is wrong with America in relation to child molestation cases tried in court when the victim(s) are poor.  He boils it down to an issue of “good and evil” that America is afraid to identify.  Well, this is enough for me to bring me to my boiling point – the powder keg has hit the flames - …

I completely agree with Nietzsche when he writes in Beyond Good and Evil that there is no strict down-the-line dyad of good and evil.  Rather, there are gradations within in-between.  It is in these gradations where the problems lie comfortably nestled when the masses search fruitlessly for the clear demarcating guidelines that just do not exist.

The problem with America is not good and evil – or the lack thereof.  Instead, the issues are money and materialism.  In a nation of Hollywood worship, conspicuous consumption, shopaholicisms, excess, greed, and indulgence – in short, the cult of money -   the overriding ill becomes the disparity between ideologies in practice and capitalism.  In a nation of capitalistic motivations, there can be no democratic justice and equality for all – rich and poor, able and handicapped.  Where there is capitalism there can be no democracy because those in power are the moneyed who can only maintain their money through continual greed.  In a nation where there exist the philanthropic few, it is the moneyed power who hold, manipulate, and control the majority.

Child molestation is a very sensitive issue for me because of my own history.  There was no one there to save me, protect me, or fight for me when I decided to escape the abuse and the courts did nothing save to emancipate me before I turned of age and wish me luck.  And yes, I was lucky – lucky to escape, lucky to survive, lucky to begin the recovery and healing process that I go through each day, twenty years later.  But if I were to bring my abusers to justice, there I am out of luck – except with kharmic justice.

So stepping away from notions of good and of evil and instead, opening our eyes, ears, and minds to the in-between may be one step towards a road to wellness and recovery.  We can identify the ills, but until the nation can adopt another form of “ism” other than capital to complement the democratic ideals America symbolizes, then that symbol is but a hyphen – a potential – existing in-between where it could be and where it is.  And this is the real tragedy of America.  Hyphenated America.  This is what the robber Barons, dirty politicians, corrupt agencies, and molesters have stolen from each and every American.  And this too is what they must remind every individual – the dream and the potential unrealized.

Away from all imagery and “isms”, perhaps a look at the real can provide guidance to our eternal search for Truth.