Pick Up The Pieces

As I have been saying about inequality:

The increasing concentration of income and wealth in the hands of a tiny elite isn't only a gross affront to social justice and any sense of equal worth in a single community. The evidence is clear that greater inequality fuels crime, corrodes democracy, divides our cities, prices people out of housing, skews the economy, is an engine of social apartheid, heightens ethnic tensions, is a barrier to opportunity and stifles social mobility - it's no coincidence that Britain and the US are at the bottom of the industrialised states' social mobility league and the more egalitarian Scandinavian countries at the top.

Another day another slaughter. In my usual naive and simplistic way I cannot see how this is allowed to continue. Forget about the Americans, surely the people of Iraq, those of the who are left, who haven't already died or left for pastures new have had enough? This is what I don't understand. The perpetrators of this mayhem cannot number all that many, so how come those with more goodness in their hearts don't denounce them, don't drive them out, don't betray them?

I appreciate that this is easier said than done and it would be a very brave man who stuck his head over the parapet, still, no rational person can imagine that these atrocities are in any way just or can be condoned. The horror of it is beyond imagining, surely, there are enough sane people left in Iraq who could just turn their backs on the crazed zealots, who could refuse to give them shelter or succour; the place is awash with weaponry, even the good guys must have guns with which to defend themselves, why don't they just turn their backs on the nutters?

There is always football to take our minds off the savagery:

The atmosphere will not resemble carnival celebrations characteristic of sports around the world, but something completely different. The special circumstances are noticeable kilometres away from the stadium itself. There will be special police forces in full riot gear at each big crossing, main streets shimmering blue with police uniforms and police vehicles, and citizens removing their vehicles and avoiding passing by the stadium with their families.

Ken Bruen: To Have And To Hold

We want to control other people and make them what we want them to be. Meanwhile, we are complaining that they do not accept us the way we are. Sometimes the biggest gift we can give to other people is just to let them be. Of course we try and help others, but helping others is very different from controlling them. We help others because we care about them; we control them because we care about ourselves.
- Ven. Chodron