This is the speech that Jim gave at our Monday night gathering.
As I look around, I see a room filled with thoughtful, intelligent
people. That being so, I want to share with you one of my favorite stories. On
a lovely spring day in Paris, Rene Descartes, strolling along the Champs Elyse,
stopped at a sidewalk café for a cup of coffee. As he finished his drink the
waiter approached and inquired if he would like a refill. Descartes
paused. “I think not.” he said, and disappeared.
(I leave you to cogitate on that.)
There is a fear that haunts my dreams.
It is a fear that by not thinking, it is not we who
will disappear but rather our democracy.
That by not thinking we will come to believe the lies and spurious arguments proffered
by the wealthy….. the powerful…. the influential….. the greedy.
By not thinking we will
surrender our birthright as the inheritors of the greatest democracy the world
has ever seen.
By not thinking we will
surrender our children’s future into the maw of a society so deprived of
humanity that it will sacrifice its own citizens on the altar of unbridled lust
for profit.
The theoretical physicist, Michio Kaku, tells us that we have
arrived at a perilous time in the evolution of society. If our civilization is
to survive this century, we must
become a society that is science based….. multicultural ….and truly
democratic
(small d).
Right now, we are surely on the horns of a dilemma.
On the one hand, we have the power to destroy ourselves in a conflagration
of sun-bright detonations
…homage to the egos of men who lack any understanding of the power they hold in
their tiny hands.
Scientists have advanced the doomsday clock to just two-and-a-half
minutes before midnight and the end of mankind, the most dangerous condition
ever recorded.
On the other hand, we are turning our backs on the destruction of
the environment, ignoring the fact
of global warming….. ignoring the extinction event happening all around us while
it eviscerates the world’s species, ignoring the pollution of the land, air and
the water that provide us life.
A little thought.
You know, there are almost eight
billion of us. The concept of unending growth is- no- longer- plausible.
Growth must necessarily slow to a sustainable rate.
This unthinkable proposition is anathema to
the world’s multinational corporations.
They will reject it outright.
They will deny its inevitability.
And finally… they will refuse to acknowledge its existence.
They will not give up
their positions of privilege freely.
They will fight against reason
and deny fact.
Given the opportunity,… they will destroy the entire ecosystem in
their blood-lust for profit.
Their greed knows no bounds,
their immorality, no limits. They already have the power and the determination.
One way or another they expect to win … and they will….
UNLESS…unless they
hit
a wall.
An impenetrable wall.
A wall of consciousness.
An unyielding wall of
humanity’s insistence on fairness,
equality and justice.
A wall between the hubris
of the accumulators of great wealth …and a decent future for our children.
A wall between the lust for power and influence… and the establishment
of a humane agenda for us all.
A wall between the dissemination of hate and divisiveness..
and the longings of rational people for a tranquil, free. and happy life.
A wall between the demagogy of the
far-right’s hate-filled rhetoric and the peaceful fulfilment of our best
and noblest dreams and aspirations.
We must be that wall.
We WILL be
that wall.
I AM the wall,……. YOU ARE the wall.
WE ARE THE WALL! WE ARE
THE WALL.
© Jim Henry
St Augustine FL
May 8, 2017
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