I guess it depends on how you look at the world when it comes to those you call innocent. Unborn babies, wildlife, those who you deem inferior, plants, children or the very planet itself all jump to my mind as those that someone, somewhere would call innocent.
One of the problems today in our world is that we are uncomfortable with who we are. We have become a ‘how does it affect me’ society and sadly the response is ‘not directly’. If it is not part of your everyday life then it boils down to ‘over there’.
Happily we live in our sheltered little world, in blissful ignorance, until it comes crashing down around us. When the event comes that causes that crash we all react the same way. We look around, shell shocked and confused and ask others for help. This is the way of mankind. Ignore others for our own greed and turn a blind eye if the help they need affects our family, tribe or nation.
Tragedies for a person, family or species can range from farcical to horrific depending on the circumstances.
Bankers and brokers who make a living exploiting and destroying families and small business’s across our nation thought they were innocent when their banks became bankrupt. They simply manipulated stocks and lending qualifications for the sake of their own greed. When they lost their billion dollar profits and their million dollar bonus checks their world was rocked and they sought help. Lucky for them the self same taxpayers whose homes and cars they stole came and bailed them out. Now they can make their millions once again and many in our nation will say more laws and regulations on those industries is a punishment against the poor innocent bankers and brokers. They believe the banks, corporations and Wall Street must be protected from regulation at all cost.
In our nation the disease or sudden medical incapacity of a family member can be a tragedy affecting the entire family group. Declined health care benefits will doom a person to lose their business, their home and ultimately their life. Sadly more affordable health care at the cost of the big insurance companies became an issue for many in our nation. One side thinks we should help the innocent person whose only sin was to fall ill or have an accident, while the other side sees the insurance companies as nothing more than good businessmen who are innocent of any crime.
Poverty and war, disease and famine, racial hate and intolerance are all alive and well in our civilized society. Greed and narrow mindedness are what now and has always driven them. The poor, the weak and the sick pay for the rich, the strong and the healthy to thrive. It has been so from the beginning of time. The law of the jungle still seems to be the law of the land. No matter what supposedly modern or enlightened nation you live in, it is this law that drives us.
Our world has seen many great nations and empires rise and fall. There seems to be a couple of truths that you see repeated time and time again with the majority of them. They rise to greatness with strong and caring leaders and businesses that care for the common man. They decline and fall when later leaders and businesses become corrupt, greedy and power hungry. They fall when they have used up the common man and they have nothing left of value. Who is innocent and who is not is debatable. In my view it is mostly the common man who is innocent of anything except attempting to live.
When those who are rich and in power are using all the wealth a people can offer and giving little in return other than poverty and destruction; then you can safely say your nation is in a state of decline. Today the abuse of that power seems more blatant than ever. We see it every day and shrug it off to go about our everyday existence.
As long as there are other people who are jobless, homeless and sick we can ignore it. As long as it is some other region that has famine, disease and poverty we can live in innocent bliss. Sadly, it seems our nation has reached that tipping point between rise and fall as we live in denial that anything is wrong.
Banks abuse us every way they can think of and our politicians must debate about what is fair, who is a criminal and who is innocent. Retirement funds disappear after a life’s work, homes are seized and children go hungry while we sit distracted like the Romans at the games watching reality TV shows.
Oil companies ignore safety regulations, let their workers die from neglected equipment, wipe out entire species and economies, destroy thousands of businesses and the way of life for sub cultures of our world and still we do not care. The vast majority of us feel bad about it of course, but we still support the politicians who receive campaign funds from these companies and call for letting them continue to kill us. Many actually think it is the fault of our government that disasters like the Gulf Coast spill or Virginia mine explosion happen. Many others feel we are unjustly punishing BP by asking them to take care of the mess they made. Still there is no public outcry to change the way things are done.
Religious and cultural beliefs soothe the minds of those who could help stop the spread of plagues like AIDS, hunger, and homelessness in our own and other nations. But they refuse to help. Why? It boils down to simple reasons really. The people that are sick and dieing over there do not think like me, they do not sound like me, they do not share my religion and beliefs, they have a different skin tone and most important… they are of no use to me.
The Pantheon of Gods must be laughing at us today! We are supposed to be a modern and science driven world but we still fight the same old wars over and over, again and again. What fools we are! We, who are not as far removed from our cave dwelling ancestors as we would like to believe.
Neptune, Zeus and Mars are all still here, as are the Gods of the sun, wind and fire. They may have new names and rituals but the beliefs are basically the same. Worship me, bow to me and kill all who do not believe in me. That is the rule of religion. Intolerance for those who believe differently, think, act or look differently. Intolerance for those who would in any way threaten the narrow little way we view the world and our place in it. Thus we can justify our hateful and uncaring ways, through the age old excuse “it is Gods will’. The beauty of this is that we can do so and still be the innocent ones.
Some of the oldest Gods in the Pantheon have recently asserted themselves as the foremost of all the Gods. They are the Gods of greed, pride and gluttony. What were thought to be some of the deadly sins are now Gods to many among us. “Greed is good” may have become a slogan for the 1980′s but the 80′s cannot hold a candle to what has been happening over the last decade.
Now, as it has always been, the innocent suffer the most.
