How can a person look at the results of his or her conviction of being ‘right’ such as the deaths of a million Iraqis, without conscience speaking up? The answer is simple – they bury their conscience or refuse to acknowledge that ‘still, tiny voice’.
This leads to a decisive ‘split’ in the psyche of such a person, a divide. The conscience is buried, but it is still there, perhaps manifesting itself in other hidden ways. An analogy could be that when you try to give up smoking, for example, on the surface you succeed, but do not notice that you are more irritable, or that you have taken an inordinate liking for eating chocolate.
What does this have to do with political personalities? You may well ask.
Many people who ‘go into politics’ profess that they do it for altruistic reasons; like wanting to make a difference; to bring ‘what the people want’ (and themselves) to come about. How can people who aspire to positions of power, reconcile their motivations to work for the good of the people, with the obvious climate of privilege and cronyism that prevails in every political system?
They must compromise or bury their conscience.
No man with a fully functioning conscience could possibly want to put himself into such a position as to make decisions for or on behalf of others. No woman either. Just ask any mother, who succumbed to the desire to have children, watching their offspring growing up and making mistakes. They are torn between guiding them and letting them learn for themselves. The mothers have doubts and if their consciences’ are near the surface, then their children grow up with that influence.
One only has to delve into the world of the abused and abusers, to see the perpetuation of parental behaviour manifest itself again and again in their offspring. Is not the opposite also likely; that ‘good’ people bring good children to maturity? I know that that is perhaps a generalization. It is also a generalization that almost everyone, deep down, is plagued by fear, according to psychologists and some gurus.
Some people manifest this more strongly than others, some are ‘control freaks’ and others want to be dominated, taking away their responsibility for themselves. All try to hide the emptiness within, where conscience lives, where the basic tendency for religious feeling resides. Mohammad, (PBUH) is reported to have said that everyone one is born ‘a Muslim’. That is how it is usually translated, but he meant the underlying feeling of spirituality, that one is not just an animal.
Take a current situation, which is not so hypothetical. Examine Dennis Kucinich’s record. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is unacceptable to the ‘powers that be’. He has not compromised his conscience, so he is never going to be the ‘front runner’ backed by the corporations. Contrast him with say Barack Obama, who in a country that has a large and vociferous majority who are racist. He is a black man, who traditionally, in the present climate, would stand no chance of election.
Why is he garnering massive contributions from big business? Why is he even in the top tier? Has he compromised his conscience in order to gain power?
You have to look beyond the rhetoric and the ‘issues’ that are constantly ‘reported’ and see what the true situation is, and many have the sense that something is wrong with what they see. Does Obama feel he is ‘right’ when he refuses to take military action ‘off the table’ with regard to Iran? Do you think that Hillary Clinton makes her decisions according to her conscience, or to focus group think?
The system is compromised – absolutely compromised by the corporations and Military, Industrial Complex.
The utterances of Pat Robertson about assassinating Hugo Chavez, the overwhelmingly elected President of Venezuela, which happens to have massive oil reserves under its soil, and works for the people’s benefit. Quite apart from a man of the cloth ignoring the ‘thou shalt not kill’ commandment, which as a Christian, he should be living by, he has never threatened assassination of the leader of North Korea, who by anyone’s’ judgment, does not work for the good of his people, and of course, he has no oil under his ground. Where is the conscience of this kind of religious leader?
When you look at the leaders of other countries, including the Islamic countries, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, you see people who also have no conscience; they oppress their people, lock up dissenters and opposition party leaders. People are manipulated, marginalized, and disaffected wherever you look.
The situation in America is not unique. Americans have their illusions of grandeur, just like nationalism manifesting everywhere. It is only seeing the light of day just now because of the likes of George Bush, the neocon agenda, which by the way, they openly have been publishing in opeds and think tank missives for quite a number of decades.
Everything in America is coming to a head. America, being the largest, (at the moment), economy, the biggest military spender on high tech armaments and private armies, the self proclaimed ‘sole super power’, the implications of what happens in America effecting the rest of the world, is very important.
