They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.
Kahil Gibran
HOW DO THE APE-MASTERS convince us to vote for their lieutenants time and time again?
How do they continue to get and wield power?
EXULT, each patriot heart! -- this night is shewn
A piece, which we may fairly call our own;
Where the proud titles of "My Lord! Your Grace!"
To humble Mr. and plain Sir give place.
Royall Tyler
THERE ARE TWO WAYS to view a democracy.
In each of these cases the big apes win big, and the weaker apes lose big.
If you are a human being by conviction—that is, if you side with our traditional ancestors on questions of fairness and freedom and equality—you see a democratic government as simply the way that all of us, together, ensure a peaceful life, defend ourselves from outsiders, promote our general welfare, and preserve freedom for ourselves and our children and grandchildren.
On the other hand, if you are an ape-master by conviction—that is, if you side with the hierarchical culture of apes which we rejected when we became human beings—you see a democratic government as one more institution to be subverted and used in your ongoing quest to make yourself dominant over others.
Republicans in Michigan have passed a bill which will allow the governor to dissolve the elected governments of towns and cities, replacing them with "emergency financial managers" who can eliminate school boards, break union contracts, and eliminate services without recourse. They're calling it "financial martial law".
In other words, that little Monopoly plutocrat in the top hat is back with a vengeance, grasping bags marked with dollar signs. He's still a Republican, he has a lot more money now, and he has probably become a patron of the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute.
Joe Conason
THE APE-MASTERS HAD not disappeared, not even in the United States.
They could no longer wear their robes and crowns here, they could no longer hold court here, they could no longer abuse the populace by direct force, but they were still here.
They began to use other tactics.
They realized that money was power.
They invented the idea of Big Business—of large-C Capitalism.
If they could no longer own slaves, they would rent them.
If they couldn't lord it over the populace at large, they would lord it over their employees, and make certain that there were enough unemployed waiting for their jobs to keep them desperate and subservient.
If they could no longer own the government, they would learn how to use their wealth and power to control the government.
They went underground.
Their arrival gave me an opportunity of noting again the sense of hierarchy that seemed to exist among the apes.
Pierre Boulle
SEVERAL POSTS AGO, I suggested that many current events make better sense in a broader context.
It's been awhile since I last posted, and you may have lost the train of thought, so I'll bring things up to date before moving forward.
The current events I mentioned included the revolutions in the Mideast, the Republican Jihad against worker's rights here at home, the nuclear crisis in Japan, the Citizens United case in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush tax cuts, and the current recession.
The list could easily go on.
I suggested that, instead of viewing these events through the lens of this year, this decade, or even this millennium, we should ask ourselves about the long view—how do these events fit into the journey we have been on as a species, since we first became human beings?
Though it would be cynical and ahistorical to conclude that conversions to Christianity in late antiquity were made only for the sake of political advancement or social convenience, it would be naive to imagine that Christianity swept the empire only because of its evident spiritual superiority. Certainly, the Christians of the first three centuries, whose adherence to Christianity could easily prove their death warrant, were devout and extraordinary. But from the time of Constantine, the vast majority of Christian converts were fairly superficial people.
Thomas Cahill
SO FOR THE LAST FEW THOUSAND YEARS we served the ape-masters in various hierarchical, ape-like cultures: Jericho, Ur, Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel, Rome, and Medieval Europe, to name a few familiar to those of us in the west.
Each of these cultures used the same techniques to enforce an ape-like hierarchy on their citizens:
But humans are not apes, and we never stopped undermining and struggling against the system.
