Almost everyone living within the suffocating confines of Western civilization (and beyond, except the American Class of 2014) knows this tale, coming from a blurb in the Book of Genesis and other books: after the Flood, the survivors, sharing one language, decided to build a great tower to impress God. There was a unity of the people, really called "Shinar" in the Old Testament version. But God wasn't pleased with their work, and "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (King James Version)
Once the tower ended, so too did the city of Shinar, it was over, and the people dispersed. There was no more society, just brigands, raiders, chaos. This is about the fall of a civilization. But why would "God" do this? There doesn't seem to be any logical reason. "God" just wanted to show who was boss. What this is, is allegory, once again.
The Priests and Sovereign of Babylon would do these things, more specifically to the captive tribal Jews, but could also be expected to have done the same to anyone under their sway. The Tower of Babel is about human hierarchy and how people tend more towards unity naturally, but that hierarchy is also natural and that it has a tendency to divide. The Priests were usually the only ones who could read and write, therefore, they controlled language, and they knew how to corrupt its use through religion to render communication between ordinary people almost useless.
That's where we're at right now as a society, a civilization. The Priests--the economists, the rich, the managerial class, the media, rotten lawyers, the military officers, the pundits, and so on--have corrupted language to the point that things are unraveling, society itself is coming-apart. A great deal of it is owed to this manipulation of language. Hierarchy might be inevitable, but its dysfunction can be controlled, my take. I'm sure this isn't the first time someone has "found" this interpretation, I make no high claims.
WWW--I know that there are many of us in America who are never going to see eye-to-eye. That's expected. That's not what this is about.
Words like "conservative," "liberal," "left," "right," "centrist," "Republican," "Democrat," "anarchist," "communist," "Libertarian," "reactionary," "socialist," "feminist," "pro-life," "pro-choice"--they don't mean anything anymore, especially when you have monolithic corporations lording over our lives.
They and their allies in the press and the media have used such words against the American public for over a century to divide us for the ends of concentrated, run amok wealth.
Why do they do this? Because, at the end of the day, we all want a better society that caters to our basic needs, and not the wants of the big guys, the big money.
I extend my hand out to everyone who wants to make this a more livable and tolerant society where the American people control the direction of this society, not a narrow-group of the selfish and the power-mad.
That's right: traditional conservatives, I am your friend. Republicans who understand this--I am also your friend. Communists too. Feminists, the Hispanic community, Black Americans, Jews, immigrants, the elderly, young voters, and-so-on. Democrats who get this, I am also your friend. The fighting amongst ourselves is beginning to end. Libertarians, and all of the rest--the same applies. We all have the same enemy, and it is Wall Street and globalization.
We owe it to ourselves, and to future generations to work towards a genuine solidarity with each other. We owe it to the world to be a good neighbor, and to stop meddling with the lives of innocent people thousands of miles away. Am I suggesting isolationism as part of our foreign policy? Absolutely. It has to stop. We owe it to the children, and we owe it to the spirit of the truth.
But besides all that, why should the public keep paying for a foreign policy they never asked for and isn't in their best interests monetarily? Any good traditional conservative would agree to this.
The greed and the dog eat dog attitudes must be dropped in this great nation, and the time for the great credo of beating our swords into plowshares has come. The great Populist call is being sounded once again, and it's time for the man in the street and in our rural communities to listen, to have that change-of-heart, and to act accordingly. We can make a better world, it's up to us. Let's roll.
