2011-12-09

rev WISDOM FOR THE AGES Time for Outrage - Stephane Hessel Q&A #1.31.06 booktv 09-27-11

This fellow proves that age is just a number - if you do it right. I'd describe him as sort of an Occidental Krishnamurti.
 
Running across this video fits in with a few docus I've seen over the past year about all the suffering visited by The Great White Father on the various Native Indian tribes as we slowly pushed them further to the west. I don't know where the line is drawn between genocide and its latter-day euphemism, 'ethnic cleansing,' but either one would describe the process.
 
When one looks at the values those 'savages' held - respect for nature and their elders, take only what you need, the 'common' meant everyone 'owned' everything, and so on - the transgressions of our paleface ancestors seem ever more mean-sprited, stupid and counterproductive.
 
 
 
Had Europe developed cultures that placed stock in real values, like those of the many indigenous peoples we bumped into on our way to running the planet (now, apparently, into the ground), instead of thumping the original inhabitants, we might have taken a moment to ask them why they did the things they did. Had we done so, today we might not still be debating such foolishness as, whether or not universal healthcare is a right (the tribes had that), the right to die (elders had the right to simply wander off when they felt the time had come), and property boundaries (Indians had no word for 'trespass' before we taught them what a good thing it was). The Indian way also avoided such thorny issues as, religious wars, tax evasion, latchkey kids, juvenile delinquency, elder abuse (no old folks homes), and many others we simply accept as the price of doing empire in our little consumer Nirvana..
 
But, mostly, there would be no 99%. And the 1%? Thye'd still be around but all the locals would be keeping them well in check.
 
I wonder what he thinks of the Occupy movement? Not sure, but I believe this was taped the day before they set up shop at Wall & Broad.
 
NjW

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


No comments: