Folks

With the dramatic rise in global awareness of what large corporations and the people behind them are doing to the world and its life forms, more people are asking for drastic measures to be taken against them.

Some of these can be identified in the post and the clip at the end of it, entitled “Nationalize BP”.

Yet it is difficult to deny that in wanting some form of justice, it is easy to get swayed with emotion and ask for extreme measures as well. For instance, asking for capital punishment (no matter how appealing this may appear to some) for those who have wreaked havoc across the globe due to greed and mismanagement may not be the best approach to solve problems.

Recently, a letter of mine to the mainstream media looked at this aspect of things in reaction to the bandying about of the ultimate sanction for reckless driving on roads.

This is an excerpt from it:

“But this does not mean that extending the reach of the hangman's rope for every tragic occasion when there is loss of life, even when negligence is involved, is the way to go.

Would it then be necessary to have capital punishment for when things go awry during medical procedures, sports or military activities, group outings, or in situations where someone offers help only to have things end tragically?

And what about situations involving businesses whose products cause death through negligence: why should they not be subject to capital punishment? Should we also call for the death penalty for the many disastrous and irresponsible things done by large corporations, as in the case of [the] BP Gulf spill? Should the chief executive officer, board of directors or shareholders be held accountable with such severity?

Surely, the statistics gathered for death due to negligence arising from greed and incompetence would register in the thousands.

We need to be judicious in punishments and exercise greater emotional control in difficult situations than merely calling for state-sanctioned executions.”

Which brings us to another question -- what do you do when confronted at long last with undeniable evidence that harm has been deliberately inflicted on people over and above the assumed cause of 'greed and incompetence'.

Putting aside the tendency of some to disregard ‘conspiracy' theories and those who see everything as a ‘conspiracy’, it is not unusual to see many groups all over the planet working together often behind the scenes.

Just think of the international banking cartel for starters.

This could help explain what happens beneath the surface of what is perceived in society and represented (or misrepresented) by the mainstream media (much of which is under corporate control anyway) as 'news'.

I recall a friend and former colleague in the media who said: "But you can't always tell the truth". And the contradistinction of that with the delicate irony of the CIA's "the truth shall set you free" under the guise of cloak and dagger, of course.

Meanwhile, what happens on the surface of society has all sorts of ‘sociological’ or other kinds of explanation for it. Bear in mind all these 'explanations' are just another form of theory to explain away something.

The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote an interesting piece late in life called On the old saw: that may be right in theory but it won’t work in practice. Kant’s focus was on moral theory and naturally, those who criticize it inevitably use some theory of their own. Of course, Kant’s work is much more than what appears on the surface as he brilliantly defends his view of moral philosophy which most of his critics were not always able to effectively bring down as much as they wanted to.

So, there are those who will give random or so-called ‘historical’ and ‘economic’ reasons for what happens in the world such as the causes of war and various economic crises etc. This is not to say that there are no valid historical perspectives nor economic forces that underly what happens in the world.

But it doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see that wars have a way of occurring and ending in manners that sometimes belie whatever reasons we cook up for them. The convenience of the Great Depression and the rise of fascism and totalitarianism and their coincidental situation between World Wars I and II can be given as many interpretations as what many others may give as to what exactly is the ‘law of gravity’. These are unfinished scenarios and explanations that are to date anything but conclusive.

For one to say, together with thousands of others, that the truth about the inside job for the September 11, 2001 attacks will be out sooner than later, is not to say anything new at all. There is no credible explanation, except for those who indulge in wishful thinking, as to how three towers collapsed when supposedly two were struck by aircraft.

Nor would those who pretend that we are all alone in the universe and that there has been no contact with extraterrestrial civilizations because, well, 'I haven’t exactly seen one and anyone can imagine stuff'.

Yet curiously, the words "but we can't always tell the truth" and the ironic take on "the truth shall set you free" may almost be transposed from A Midsummer Night's Dream if only it caused as much delight in our subconscious as a Shakespearean comedy.

As for extraterrestrial life, Kant too believed in such a possibility ("I should not hesitate to stake all on the truth of the proposition ... that, at least, some one of the planets, which we see, is inhabited."). Instead of setting it far out in the galaxy he thought it possible closer to home.

The explanation for being alone in the universe is yet another theory that sometimes goes 'if were not alone, why haven’t they landed yet?'

But interestingly enough, a lot of us have even more radical beliefs than what has been written above, in the sense of going to the root cause of things: some of us actually believe in God.

Think about what that really implies.

For those who say what’s surprising about belief in God, one would venture to say that they haven’t had a genuine spiritual experience. But again, for those who claim they have had a spiritual experience, ask them why they then think others have not had other experiences that may prove to them conclusively what some others would prefer to be in denial of.

Many of us show daily just how alive Orwell’s dictum is, that all of us are entitled to our pet explanations but some theories are more equal than others (well, a variation of Orwell). Usually, we mean our own explanations are the accurate ones.

But it will be interesting to see the faces of those who have been vociferously denying many things when the truth of so much finally comes to light and hits the fan. And the question is: to what extent will it be possible to hold back a populace that may be screaming for blood in the name of ‘justice’ real or imagined.

Let me explain: the Nuremberg trials in Germany were a world wide catharsis if you like. The great Mandela’s truth and reconciliation approach kept South Africa together during its post-apartheid phase.

Can people learn to bring in punishment that’s judicious and, shocking as it may seem, even learn forgiveness on a mass scale big time, when the truth about many things corporation-political wise come out for what they are at long last.

Or after all our sophisticated theories, can we only see the enactment of 'an eye for an eye' as the sum total of human wisdom?

That part of our human experience has yet to be written and we will each be actively creating that reality even as we observe it purportedly on the sidelines. Each of our thoughts is a vote for a certain outcome,

And somehow we will have to make it such that the truth does set us free.

Below are two clips from the Zapruder film on the tragic assassination of JFK.

Watch carefully the driver of the car (secret service man), pull out a modified gun and shoot JFK in the head with an exploding bullet, put it back in his coat and hit the accelerator. Don't look at Kennedy, watch the driver.

This is the slow motion clip, and watch at the 49-56 second frames:

We will soon learn the truth of Hamlet's words to his closest friend:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”