The Evolution of Revolution, Part III: Expelling the Demons of the Opiate

Writer's Note: This is a social criticism and commentary on religion, meant to stir thought and insight into a different way of seeing the world. My wish is not to offend anyone's beliefs, only to open minds to new realms of understanding and to what just might be possible. I do not claim to be right, or to know the truth. Quite simply, I wish only for the reader to absorb this essay with an open mind, willing to challenge all they have ever known and learned.

Into the Mind and Ego

The human brain, like the human body, is a fragile wonderment of evolution, formed with the arrival of life on Earth, layered through the ceaseless continuation of mutation, growing and adapting over the course of Earth history, and combining the innermost reaches of primitive beginnings with those middle layers of our mammalian past and the newer manifestations of our more modern primate present. Over millennia it has grown to its present size, granting us intelligence unsurpassed, dominion over the planet and the power of constant thought. Its power is unmatched, for this most important of human muscles serves as the epicenter of human function and of civilization itself. It is the catalyst that has enabled humanity to thrive and adapt first in a natural environment brutal and difficult and later in our new ecosystem, the city.

Yet inside its magnificence as an instrument of human ingenuity also lies a mind that remains primitive in thought and understanding, unable to extricate from its pillars an ego dominated by reptilian instinct, mammalian fear and human insecurity. Today's brain, while seemingly unsurpassed in its power of thought, while labeled the highest instrument of power yet achieved by a living organism, nonetheless remains the product of human evolution, from our days hanging on tree branches in the jungles of Africa to our hunter/gatherer Diaspora across the regions of Earth to the arrival of modern homo sapiens, a few hundred thousand years ago.

The modern human brain has not changed for roughly 200,000 years, remaining the same in size and capacity as those of our first ancestors of long lost yesteryears. Evolution, after all, works patiently, molding its clay over long epochs of time, not in short spurts of millennia. In our lifetimes, and in those of our ancestors and descendants, evolution of our minds, bodies and of Earth itself cannot be seen, for our short lifespans make it impossible to grasp the complexity of time and the longevity of change. To the human mind time is hard to conceptualize, epochs are unfathomable to understand and evolution is difficult to grasp, given we live a few decades short of a century, nothing less than an infinitesimal hiccup in the long history of Earth.

Thus, the mind of man, whether present and modern or of hunter/gatherer, migrating groups spreading to all corners of the globe in the greatest human Diaspora ever, has remained the same, unchanged and vulnerable to our animal behaviors and emotions, still primitive and fragile to our fears. Granted that we share 99 percent of the same genes as chimpanzees, our closest animal cousins, and are only capable of using eight percent of our brain's capacity, the human brain remains shackled in time, a product of minute and slow mutations, a manifestation of our short yet tumultuous existence and an instrument that has advanced civilization even as civilization has yet to advance our mental primitiveness.

In our mind lies the as always fragile human ego, that demon running rampant inside us, dominating our animal behaviors and instincts, never allowing us to overcome the fear and insecurity of being human. With intelligence has come the ability to think and reason, forever asking ourselves questions as to our origins and our place in the environments we inhabit. We see humankind around us, forming societies, surviving in harsh environments, dominating the planet, yet the ego, and our ability to think, places a heavy burden on the human condition that makes us seek answers to many profound and vexing questions. The ego surfaces inside us, making humans think beyond the realm of understanding. With thought comes this manifestation, as we are very curious animals, needing answers to questions in order to settle down minds running rampant with the human ego. Primitive minds given the ability to reason are thus confronted with the demons of trying to answer, in the only way a primitive mind knows how, questions that human curiosity, fear, insecurity and denial conjure up. This is our burden, and one of our greatest demons.

In the Beginning

In the beginning, when humankind first thought of its place in the known world, living in environments virgin, bountiful and pristine, setting foot in a paradise never to be seen again, journeying far and wide both for survival and a home, in time splitting up again and again, branching out in diversity and to different destinies, a loneliness of existence began setting in. A fear of the unknown, of traversing lands alien and uncomfortable, of confronting threats both human and natural, was spawned from inside a primitive brain not understanding of how Earth and its many complexities worked.

Without the power of the collective brain or the accumulated knowledge gathered over many centuries, without a grasp both of science and the learned understanding of the many laws of nature, lacking sophisticated enlightenment and the ever-important growing awareness of self, our ancestors saw a world foreboding in character and frightful in existence. They saw an environment full of obstacles and dangers. They felt alone in the world as their thinking minds wondered on their origins and reason for living. Slowly but surely human curiosity blended with imaginations, forming an ego that helped explain, in primitive ways, an existence that encompassed early man.

Afraid of loneliness and fearful of the world around them, early humans developed beliefs that would better control the ever-insecure human thought process. In order to understand what was then unknown early man developed entities, known as gods, and stories, myths and fables that explained, in very primitive ways, the world they inhabited. The fear of primitive thought was controlled by stories of how man had been created, helping to restore the human ego's questions on origin and reason for existence. Gods were created, based on the imagination and observation of nature, to help explain the unexplained and the paradigms of fear the natural world conveyed.

By introducing the concept of gods, early humans were able to find meaning in their world. They were at once able to differentiate themselves from animals and the natural world surrounding them. Questions that arose were answered easily enough through stories and myths created out of human ingenuity and imagination, and soon nature itself became a series of gods, as did anything not understood that needed explaining, such as the sun, moon, rain, wind, water, fire, the seasons, soil, harvest and the animal world. The concept of being alone in the world was erased as stories of creation and of metaphysical entities made man the foundation of existence, placing us at the throne of Earth and helping, in many ways, to squash the incessant fears early man had of the world it inhabited. Thus, questions were answered, the ego was satisfied, and the idea of religion was born.

The world enveloping early man was mesmerizing, an unfathomable amalgam of perplexing complexity and balance, and in time, as we began dominating the natural world, as our confidence and powers grew, as our dominion over all things living increased, religion became the dominant force affecting our lives and futures. As primitive as early religion was, though some say modern ones still are, it retained the idea that humanity was one with nature. With a wide variety of gods, each representing one or several realms of the natural world, humans were made to respect the world around them. In those days, humankind was still part of nature, and so had to live according to its balances and its rules.

Another reason for the introduction of religion into human societies was the reality of death, and of the profound refusal of the human mind to accept a finality to life. In the human condition exists the foundation seeking ever-lasting life, of not wanting to contemplate that after one's last breath finality to life sets in. Our ego refuses to postulate such a thought, for the human mind insists on a continuance to life through a journey through the metaphysical where it is believed we will continue existing, though outside the body. We cannot accept that no afterlife exists, for this would mean that after living the human insistence of life ceases to exist, making us vanish from all existence.

Based on fear of death, belief in life after living on Earth, or of reincarnation, resurrection or rebirth, assures the fragile and insecure human mind that there is nothing to fear once one's present life on Earth ceases to exist. It is this thought process that has for hundreds of thousands of years led to rituals of death and of burial. Death has been and continues to be seen as a continuation, not an end. In this clever way, the human ego grants us the illusion that life has meaning and purpose, for if we die a new life awaits in the afterlife. In denial of emptiness after death, religion makes the insecure human mind conceptualize death. It is in these beliefs that the human mind is assured that death is not to be feared for the continuance of one's life will exist into perpetuity.

In our refusal to accept an end to life religion has thus survived, for religious dogma, in all regions of the planet, in all societies, guarantees life after death in some way, shape or form. Religion has for millennia gripped the fear humanity has of never again existing after death and has created elaborate stories and fables assuring us of that will be well, that in the afterlife we can trust. Thus the continuance of one's life, even after knowing what happens to flesh and blood after death, becomes an elaborate exploitation of human fear of death, thereby assuring us that if we follow such beliefs and religious thought, our place beyond the rotting carcass, the feeding maggots and putrid smell of death is a foregone conclusion.

Religious belief grew out of our feeble ability to grasp the enormity that is the universe, Earth, time and space. It grew out of our ever-curious minds, of our wanting to know our origin and our purpose. It grew out of our ego's insistence that we are different, and by consequence superior, to our mammal cousins and all other creatures existing on the planet. In order to solve questions we could not answer in the reality of life we created religious belief; in order to persuade our fragile and primitive egos of our glorious creation as rulers of Earth dogma was established; in order to placate our fears of the unknown and mysterious gods and myths were formed. In religion humanity found a salvation to the ever-thinking brain, to the need of finding answers where non existed, of satisfying curiosity and fears.

Early man came to understand that it thought, therefore it existed; it outsmarted, therefore it was superior; it understood, therefore it feared. The ego from where all religion sprung forth assured early man that it was beyond animal, that it was profoundly different, a manifestation of the gods. In religion it found satisfaction that there was purpose in life, that the gods looked down on weak egos from the unreachable and mysterious skies above. Religious belief in deities invisible and elusive assured our early ancestors that they were not alone in the vastness of a world they understood little about. When the natural world provided manifestations both bewildering and unexplained, doing what it has done since the beginning of time, thereby spawning fear into primitive minds, it was religion, its gods and stories that explained the unexplainable and made a frightful world suddenly seem purposeful. In the form of myths and fables, suddenly the world became understandable and decipherable. Out of chaos order could now be found, helping to put at ease primitive minds living in primitive and insecure environs.

Through all corners of the globe religion planted its sturdy roots, establishing itself in all societies and cultures. It was the universal human instinct, along with our similar thought processes and our ever-present ego, that enabled the metaphysical to rise from the lands of Earth, manifesting its existence in the minds of men and forever cementing both the foundations of meaning behind life and companionship in this world, making our existence less lonely through the myths of always watching gods overlooking their cherished creations.

All peoples, diverse in climate, location and environments, in culture, experiences and ethnicity created for themselves gods, myths and fables, some more elaborate than others. With no interaction between the vast majority of these tribes, religion took hold, in separate places and spaces, both in proximity and distance in time. Separated by vast oceans, arid deserts, frozen tundra or dense jungles, each people's beliefs and gods were different, yet the idea of creating and worshipping deities existed throughout the world. Today we can see this reality in Paleolithic cave paintings in Eurasia celebrating an ancient artist's deities; we can see it in African or Asian idols carved or molded; we can see it in North and South American cave dwellings, worshipping painted images; or in the painted rocks of Australia, where ancients celebrated the natural world.

Throughout the world entire the incessant human need to feel comfort away from loneliness rose from the minds of curious undertakings and imaginative answers. We were made to feel special and wanted, a creature chosen from the gods of nature to rule over the lands of Earth and all its creatures. Answers to where we came from were provided, helping place security in the meaning of life, helping the primitive and curious brain find solace as it journeyed inside a world with few answers and a universe of unfathomable understandings. Because of religious belief the search for answers to questions perplexing and frightful ended. Answers once sought were now provided by gods and their fables.

In all corners of the globe the human ego birthed creations and beliefs explaining a world not understood by primitive beings burdened by thought and reason. Rising independent of each other, various and diverse theologies show the psychology, fragility and inquisitiveness of the human mind. In all peoples, in all times and places, religion rose to provide the ego with the tools needed to survive and understand human society and culture. It was evolution of thought, for primitive peoples in need of answers, lacking the knowledge, technology and scientific exploration of today, that rose to make humankind's interaction with the natural world around them more manageable.

Delusion and Denial

As the human primate continued to evolve its behaviors, societies and communal brain it found itself dominating and manipulating the natural world like never before. Suddenly blasting off on a space ship did we find ourselves, embarking on a monumental ego trip that we have yet to descend from, travelling the stars and planets, lost in our thoughts of grandeur, of blessed and destined creations, every year more miles away from reality, thinking ourselves supreme beings over all things living, granted endowed dominion and inherited rule over the wonders of life on Earth.

With religious belief making possible the distinction between man and animal, with myths and fables differentiating us from our mammalian relatives, making us rulers over all things living, the detrimental exploitation of the planet and its creatures could commence. Key to the belief of religion was the concept that humans were indeed chosen by the gods, created superior to all other living organisms, a separate form of existence from all lower life forms.

For the human ego could not and still refuses to accept that man is but mammalian in birth, just another animal roaming the planet, one species of many, part of the same amalgam of creation spawned by the first pools of primordial beginnings. This concept, religion, thanks to the ego, could not and would not allow, for to be seen as equals with the animal world would be to see past the mirage of our great supremacy and the charade that man was put on this planet by gods of illusion in order to rule over all things living.

The idea that man and beast were one and the same was forever erased, for to acknowledge this truism would be to place humankind on par with "lesser" species, relegating our existence to theirs and their lives to ours, making us equals to creatures we dominated and ruled over. If humans were chosen by gods, animals were made to be dominated; if humans died and continued into the afterlife, animals simply decomposed in time; if humans alone could think and dream, animals were seen as dumb and without intelligence. The reality that we reproduce, feed, breathe, function, behave, give birth and raise offspring in similar ways was ignored. So to was the truth that our bodies were composed of the same organic matter, containing the same organs inside and the same hair and skin outside, bleeding red, urinating yellow, defecating brown, being born, living and dying in much the same ways.

Every attempt was made to differentiate ourselves from the mammalian world we belong to, making humans superior and animals inferior, making humans rulers and animals subservient. Our ego once more interfered with our psychology, preferring to dwell in fantasy rather than confront reality. This erroneous fallacy haunts us to this day, for to deny the reality of our existence is to deny reality itself. To deny the impulses of our condition is to deny humanity itself. Accepting that we were but part of the animal world and not chosen by gods or placed to rule over Earth would be too much for human egos to dwell, making most religions, so full of self-aggrandizement and ego-driven fiction, the archaic fantasies they are and relegating most to the dustbins of history.

Because man did not comprehend the complexities of nature, the communications of animals, the interactions among species or the behaviors of organisms he made and labeled inferior that which he did not understand, thinking himself the supreme being on Earth, always willing to differentiate himself away from his not too distant past. Not wanting to be associated with that that troubled him most, not wanting to confront reality for fear of upsetting his ego, man embraced myth and fable, becoming blind to common sense and reality, living in an infallible bubble of intoxicating magnificence.

In distancing ourselves away from who and what we truly are we have entered a vicious circle of ignorance and ego, living deluded lives amid an enveloping reality. This demon of fiction is devouring humanity itself, tearing us apart from inside, for we refuse to expel it from our midst. Living in the comfortable bubble of denial will be our ultimate downfall.

The Opiate of the Masses

As humanity evolved so too did religious thought, and soon entire regions of accumulated peoples and tribes were practicing the same beliefs. Through conquest, invasion, occupation and the growing interaction of various diverse peoples, ideas and beliefs new tenets were incorporated and old ones discarded. New gods rose while others disappeared. Over time deviations of dogma sprung forward as sects and priests interpreted stories differently, creating diverse branches out of one original belief system. Religions evolved according to the environments where groups lived or based on experiences such as war, drought or shifting alliances. From the strongly rooted beliefs of one tribe that had over time become balkanized or splintered appeared dozens of separate and mutated religions and beliefs, each shifting ideology or belief according to new rulers and priests, based on balances of power and on vested interests.

Over centuries varied differences in belief appeared, creating friction that oftentimes led to armed conflict. Areas such as Mesopotamia, with a large and growing population of various diverse peoples and ideas, soon became regions afflicted with religious strife as out of one original religion many more had over the years been spawned. Christianity, Islam and Judaism, not to mention the beliefs of ancient Greeks and Miceneans, all formed from the same mother theology based in and around the Middle East, most likely from the first civilizations, are the most prominent examples of three separate religions whose origins share one common beginning.

Many more religions mutated away from their original one, some to evolve in different directions and some to die with the passage of time. This phenomenon, as always visible with religion, can presently be seen in the various sects of Christianity that established themselves apart from the original, first in Northern Europe and later in the United States, commencing a few centuries ago after splintering away from the monolithic Roman Catholic Church, itself a mere 1,600 years old.

And so, as humankind evolved the city state and the empire, religion became, especially to those practicing in and around the Mediterranean Sea basin, a hotly contested interaction to see whose gods were greater than the other's. Ancient powers such as those of Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, Macedonia, Rome, Assyria, Phoenicia, Carthage, Babylonia and Persia, to name but a few dominant players, waged ceaseless war against each other, often for conquest, land, resources and for the expansion of empire, but also for religious purposes, thereby establishing whose gods continued into the future and whose gods had their statues knocked forever to the ground, made extinct in the realm of humanity, thereby becoming eerie reminders that religions, gods, myths and fables, as powerful as they might appear, always shift with the balance of power just as they do with the changing sands of time.

With the rise of the city-state, and to a much lesser degree with the smaller tribes as well, grew the politicization of religion by the ruling classes, comprised of royalty and high priests. The fusion of governance and religion, in large and growing city-states, combined with the greed, selfishness and addiction to power inherent in the human condition to form a mechanism of powerful rule over a population. In organized religion the elite saw a most powerful weapon of control and of retaining, and indeed expanding, both wealth and power through the manipulation of the masses.

Few human beings during these times possessed any semblance of education, much less the ability to write and read. What they did possess, however, was a very naive and gullible mind, easily manipulated, through the control of religion, to the dictates of those in power. To most human beings since the rise of civilization, religion has been the most important aspect of their lives. For millennia religion has purposefully been the center of life, becoming to most societies of paramount importance, dominating every facet of society. Thus, in the unenlightened and poor of history, comprised of most of humanity, made firm believers and worshipers in metaphysical entities from the moment of birth, having nothing to live for except the hope of faith and the expectation of afterlife, religion became the very fabric of their existence. This the ruling elite knew well, exploiting ignorance and faith for the benefit of their growing power and dominion over the masses.

Those in power know, just as they always have, regardless of society or region, that religion acts as a great wall or buffer that maintains the balance of power as it has existed throughout history, controlling the majority, keeping them subservient to the elite. They know that religion is a weapon attaching itself to the frail human ego that cannot accept a reality that is not easy to contemplate. Religion provides a sense of security to a human mind that cannot and perhaps does not want to see humanity for what it is. In religion man becomes special, a creation made in the image of gods, chosen to rule over Earth, thus making him a most magnificent being.

Man becomes not the lonely primate roaming a tiny planet in search of survival, behaving just like any other organism, born, procreating and dying, decomposing and disappearing, but rather a holier than thou entity watched over and protected by god(s), possessing perpetual life through an afterlife, continuing to live in the metaphysical, becoming much more than mere animals. Through religion we become loved by our creators. We are provided with answers to unanswerable questions, made secure that we are not alone, assured that there is meaning to life, made to feel safe in the ever-present human fear of the unknown.

The frail human ego desperately clings to religion as an escape to a life made hard and brutal, preferring to live in fantasyland rather than confronting the hard truth about our existence. Religion is our opiate, having become throughout history our escapist drug, helping us cope with the life of a human being, full of suffering, brutality, violence, poverty, fear and insecurity. Our opiate quenches our ever-thirsty mind, providing easy answers to a brain that is in constant thought.

It was, and still is, an evolutionary mechanism for a mind that remains primitive, refusing, or not yet being able to see the human condition for what it is, helping us cope with an ego that is as frail as fine china. It is a tool provided a primitive mind that is confronted with endless thoughts and questions, a way to better explain the world to a species burdened with the overwhelming intelligence and curiosity we possess. Religion developed at a time when the human brain, though as modern as ours today, was not ready to confront truths and realities in the world. It evolved at a point in our existence when little was known, knowledge was limited, primitiveness abounded, science had yet to explain and the world was full of fear and insecurity.

Organized religion is humankind's opiate, fed to us by the elite and those whose interests lie in controlling our minds, wishing for nothing more than the continued subjugation, pacific complacency and lingering in perpetual stupor of the masses. A once noble human creation, providing primitive minds a sense of security, has been bastardized and exploited over the years. Warm philosophies of humanity, such as those espoused by prophets and visionaries such as Jesus and Mohammed, are routinely mutated to suit the needs of those in power. Rarely are the messages espoused by true warriors of peace and love heard and applied.

These messages, preached the world over by a multitude of persons, regardless of time and space, are conveniently forgotten, easily espoused but rarely implemented, used only to control and manipulate. For the elite to allow the masses to follow and implement the teachings of Jesus, himself a normal human being turned political activist, upset at the bastardization of religion he witnessed and extolling the virtues of what today is termed "socialism," would be to self-strangulate themselves, forced to give up their vast wealth, power, control and forever putting a stop to the massive exploitation, subjugation and oppression they have for millennia imposed on the masses.

The Chalice of Control

Religion serves the interests of the elite, making the masses easily controlled beings dominated by a few and forever made blind to their perpetual exploitation. From the moment of birth hereditary conditioning is imposed on a newborn human subject, over the years turning him or her into another cog in the system of control. It begins through the indoctrination of religious beliefs by parents and family onto a still innocent mind incapable of reason or of thinking on its own. Absorbing all behaviors and beliefs of the family, the sponge-like, curios mind of youth has no option but to incorporate into its sphere of understanding the principles and dogma being bombarded into its head.

Through years of inculcation, the child grows up without options or an opportunity to question the beliefs learned. Years of brainwashing into a particular religion make it extremely difficult for the mind to escape the grip of belief once it reaches the age of reason, when it begins thinking on its own. For eighteen to twenty years religion digs deep into the mind, becoming part of the person, part of the core set of beliefs, a habit that will not easily be expelled. With such a profound head start over the reasoning, self-thinking human mind, religion is all but assured of life-long loyalty and subservience. The managers running the control factory turning out an assembly line of captured souls could not be happier.

Using the parents as conduits of brainwashing, organized religion, and the elite that control and run it, have perfected the soul-conscription business, almost without expense creating new followers. In a vicious circle of unconscious consequences, parents, themselves in the grip of religion since their birth, unsuspectingly become the assembly line workers of the elite that control them, passing the demons of the opiate onto their children through their incessant following and teaching of beliefs and behaviors. Parents thus become the worker bees and soldier ants of religion, passing down through the generations the same grip of control and conditioning they themselves received at the hands of their parents.

This intergenerational soul manufacturing activity, where ancestors past and descendants present find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of brainwashed inheritance, passing to each subsequent generation the torch of conditioned belief, is the genius behind the elite's vice-like grip of control, and the reason religion, no matter how many times and in how many different ways gets destroyed by today's sciences or modern thoughts, keeps subsisting, year after year, regardless of how fantastical beliefs get and no matter how deviated from truth and reality it becomes.

The elite are well aware that brainwashing works best in youth, when the mind has not had time to grow in wisdom and experience. It is during this time that the innocent mind will believe almost anything thrown its way, especially if family preaches it or encourages its dissemination. This is the function of religious schools and services, for they are created with the purpose of molding and conditioning the innocence of youth into the controlled souls marching in the army of religious belief, lasting for many decades of service, from cradle to grave. Dogma is blitzkrieged into young minds, transforming the brain of young primates into the subservient mind of adults, now easily controlledthrough the manipulation of youth.

These adults, in turn, will in most likelihood become lifelong slaves to the system exploiting and controlling them. In fact, they never really stood a chance to escape as the brainwashing of youth, lasting twenty or more years, firmly planted itself into the mind, becoming a deeply entrenched and ingrained part of their psyche and behavior, through the years eviscerating any semblance of rational, analytical and logical thinking. Deeply rooted in the mind after years of indoctrination, beliefs make blind obvious reality and unquestioned truth, eroding the inherent human need to question authority.Common sense gives way to trust and faith in fantasy, myth and fable, placing the unseen, unknown metaphysical entity above the truisms of fact and realism. This is control; this is the demons of the opiate.

It is in youth that religion is bombarded into minds, for the virgin brain is ripe for picking, using the tools necessary for lifelong service and enslavement, for the elite know that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Constant repetition, memorization of songs and ideology, telling and retelling of myths and fables, pushing the mind away from the inherent need to seek questions, pushing the boundaries of reality, forcing the creation of habits and rituals, intimidating and frightening based on lies and deceptions, manipulation of psychologies, hiding other alternatives and views, eroding reason andanalytical thinking and providing a dumbing down education are all tools used to indoctrinate, manipulate and subjugate. They are the cocktail contained in the chalice of control. The child, therefore, stands not a chance at escaping the conditioning of youth, carrying into adulthood the demons of the opiate, passing onto a new generation, through the assembly line called human procreation, the brainwashing needed for the elite to control and enslave yet one more soul.

The Enemy of Religion

Education is the enemy of religion, for the enlightened human brain possesses the building blocks needed to combat the demons of the opiate. It is able to confront fantasy and distinguishing fact from fiction, analyzing and thinking for itself, not being controlled by rulers, high priests or false prophets dictating what was, what is and what will become. Education is the kryponite of the elite who depend on religion for control over the masses, for it causes the independent mind to think in shades of gray, not simply in black and white. It logically embraces common sense and the reality perceived in the world, not in ancient myth and fable. Perhaps for this reason religion fights incredibly hard to suppress knowledge and new awakenings, trying desperately to squash reality before truth adds yet another nail in the coffin of fictional belief.

Education provides answers that stand the test of time, based on scientific inquiry, observation and dialogue. It is not dependent on the preachings of modern day Rasputins or of ancient stories no longer relevant to the world of the 21st century. Education and enlightenment, when not made insignificant through the brainwashing of youth by family and religious institutions, tends to create open minds and tolerant behaviors. It emancipates primitive minds, freeing us to explore an awe-inspiring world full of wonderment and questions, full of answers and solutions. Education equals liberation, which is why religious elites detest it. It liberates the mind and allows the soul to experience the enjoyment of life on Earth, free of the hindrances, threats, controls, sacrifices, inculcated guilt, manipulated behaviors and indoctrinated fictions bombarded by religious belief.

For the ruling elite to maintain the control over the masses, education and enlightenment must not be allowed to flourish, lest the accumulation of souls dissipate. It is therefore imperative that if education is allowed to exist, it be of the kind beneficial to religious belief. It is this reason that compels religions, and the elite that dominate them, to control what gets taught to children. Throughout history, the elite have participated in the so-called education of youth, under the rubric of providing the tools necessary for one's future getting the opportunity to mold, according to their liking, the future minds of generation to come. In reality, what is provided is not education, but rather the means by which incessant brainwashing is unleashed upon the fragile mind of youth.

A dumbed down education combined with theological indoctrination makes ignorance grow, thus making it easier to control the minds of youth and adults. Knowledge is power, which is why the elite do not care to empower the minds they want to control. Dumbed down educations serve their purpose, creating loyal servants who will never question authority or demand change. To political and religious elite, not to mention those in the Establishment, the less education a child receives the better, for more controlled will that person become.

Less education means less resources, which usually means a worsening socio-economic status. This in turn leads to the perpetual caste system that serves to create the slaves and workers of the Establishment along with the captured souls of religion. With less resources and education, the role of women becomes that of childbearer and caretaker, made subservient to her husband, while that of the husband is devoted exclusively to bringing home a wage. Preoccupied with surviving, this caste of humans does not seek to question authority or think about the philosophies of life. They have little time and energy, and so are well controlled. The more indigent and unenlightened a couple is the more likely it is they will have a high number of children. This in turn fosters indigence and a perpetual caste status as resources must be divided among many. Most likely, the children of this couple will never get past a sixth grade education, in time becoming deeply rooted to the destiny the political and religious elite have set aside for them.

The more indigent and less enlightened a person is the more likely it is that they will be religious, depending on the fictional teachings of religion to make a harsh life bearable. In their misery and poverty they will ask their religion for solutions, asking why they received what they have, getting answers that whitewash reality and circumvent truth. Lies that theirs is the kingdom of heaven, that blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the world, that in life they must sacrifice in order to achieve a place in heaven will be told. Not having any other choice, they will believe, told to have faith in a salvation that will never come. The same institution they place blind faith in serves to exploit and control them, depending on their souls for continued existence and power.

Is it any wonder that Christianity has moved away from Europe, where churches today see only a trickle of gray haired believers, and where education and socio-economic status have risen, and has adopted a strategy of pursuing souls in the indigent-filled, education-lacking populations of the south, shocking and awing the peoples of Africa, Latin America and Asia, most of whom have nothing to live for except the next day and their next meal? In misery religion finds a gold-mine and incredible opportunities to convert souls, as it does in time of upheaval or calamity. The frail human mind, as well as our weak egos, cannot handle the conditions of suffering. In these times we are more likely to turn to the opiate that offers solace and comfort, like the drug that it is offering us escapes into realms of nonexistent worlds, mythical charades and unseen deities. We are human, after all. All too human.

Expelling the Demons of the Opiate

Religion, as it is known today, was created for the world of yesteryear, when very little was known about the world surrounding us. Without knowledge, education, science and experiences accumulated over millennia, the world was a very mysterious and frightful place. It was during this time that religion served a valuable purpose, giving comfort and security to primitive brains in need of answers and gods. Today's religions, focused on those birthed in the Middle East thousands of years ago, the product of one original faith, are a relic of the past, archaic in principle and primitive in thought.

They were designed for ancient peoples, not those of today. They have failed to evolve with civilization, refusing to accept the logical steps of evolution any entity, organic or societal, needs in order to survive. Instead of adapting, they have stayed behind. Instead of going forward in time, they have regressed backwards, too mesmerized by ideology and too fearful of change to continue serving humankind.

These religions continue to live in fantasy, swallowing up the incredible talents of humankind, erasing from memory entire cultures and peoples. They continue to hinder the development of mankind, forcing with all their might to return civilization back in time, to days when their ideology dominated. Today, their beliefs are under assault, slowly disintegrating under the weight of modern thought and advancement. Yet they maintain their self-defeating course, reinventing their convictions under different terms and philosophies, always seeking to maintain ignorance among their subjects.

Their tenets divide humankind, causing perpetual conflict and violence. They scapegoat diversity and seek to tarnish those not of their beliefs or thinking. Threats to their existence are persecuted, such as those truths uncovered by Galileo, Copernicus and Darwin. The fables and myths written in times ancient and primitive, mostly by men of limited wisdom, are used to justify their unjust wars, causes, their unequal treatment of humans, their bigotry, their xenophobia, homophobia, intolerance and their continued domination over their subjects. Through the words of primitive men they justify the teachings no longer relevant today.

These religions of the past which continue lingering into the present thrive on ignorance and fear, for in these tools of control they can maintain power and a semblance of subservience. Their leaders deceive and manipulate their flock, exploiting blind faith and brainwashed belief to achieve their goals. They refuse to adapt to present environments and conditions, in essence contributing to the suffering, violence, indigence and death of believers. Better to stick to archaic thought than to save the lives of billions.

Modern pragmatism and primitive delusion are mutually exclusive, it seems, which is why today Europe basks in the glow and prosperity of secularism while the United States succumbs to the catacombs of fundamentalism, slowly being dragged down back to the Dark Ages. Once under the grip of religion, the EU and its people are progressing forward, successful in expelling the demons of the opiate from its midst. No longer brainwashed, no longer controlled by religion, no longer sacrificing for a second coming that will never arrive, Europeans are free to live life to the fullest, enjoying the splendors of today and not waiting for the salvation beyond the grave. Europe is not perfect, but it is, more and more, free of the corrosive grip of Christianity that for years threatened to destroy the fabric of society.

It has been religion, along with nationalism and patriotism, that has caused more death, destruction and suffering than any other human endeavor since the beginning of time. All because of pissing contests to see who's gods are greater than the other's. All because of wars to convert souls, to create loyal subjects and appease the gods of invisibility and metaphysical existence.

Realism over fundamentalism, humanism over primitivism, modernity over archaic thought, a better belief system exists, if one is needed at all. Humanity needs a system adapted for modern man, free of control and corrosive brainwashing, one that embraces humankind and actually serves to assist the less fortunate rather than oppress them even more. Throughout history there has been a plethora of theologies, each independent in time, place and space, none of which can claim to be the rightful one. Religions thrive and die, maturing and declining, always replaced by newer, more attractive ones. Today's religions were not the first to arise, and they will certainly not be the last to arrive and thrive. It is a matter of time before adaptability, modern thinking and wiser beliefs prevail to create beliefs more in tune to human beings of today.

Religion can serve a purpose, and it can be a wonderful mechanism for humanity, yet the philosophies of great prophets such as Gandhi, Jesus and Martin Luther King need to be incorporated into today's spirituality, replacing the hatred-filled, vengeance-seeking, violence-laden, arrogant and callous god of the Old Testament. If you are a follower of Christianity, then follow Christ's teachings, do not become the hypocrite espousing but rarely, if ever, implementing his words into action.

We need to evolve religion, for if not, it will regress humankind back to days dark and perilous, never allowing us to move forward in a warm embrace of new understandings and knowledge. If you must believe in something, then believe in humanism, in compassion, in peace, love and togetherness. Believe in the Earth and the splendors of her surface. Believe in nature and in saving it from ourselves. Believe in the human race, for divided we stand not a chance yet united we will thrive. If we fail to embrace in locking arms then soon we will perish as a species, for the day is fast approaching when the human animal will once again resurrect itself inside us. Together, however, we hold the keys to unchaining humankind from the grips of self-annihilation and corrosive and divisive theology. It is time to evolve forward in time, expelling the demons of the opiate, leaving behind the cancerous beliefs holding man in perpetual bondage, hindering our incredible potential.

The Evolution of Revolution is upon us, for, until proven otherwise, there is but one god, and that is humanity.

The Evolution of Revolution, Part II: Where Flags Do Not Rise

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people, living for today...Imagine there's no countries, It isn’t hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people, living life in peace...Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world...You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one.

--- John Lennon, Imagine


Humanity and the Tribe


From the heaven’s above and in space beyond, outside the dimensions of Earth’s rounded surface, where one can almost grasp the stars and the darkness that is the universe, contemplating and exploring the vastness of an energy not fathomable by primitive minds, a small yet lively planet can be witnessed revolving around its axis, divided into day and night, going about its daily existence, exhibiting its cloud cover and vast oceans, its green continents and brown soils, its vivacity and contained energy. A planet without lines of separation, without borders, flags and nationalistic inclinations can be seen from high above the zenith where few men and women have gone before, a world where only natural barriers exist, fluidly traversing the dimensions of Earth, undivided by the laws of man or the wars of humanity.

From high above the reach of clouds one single world can be seen, undivided and unmarked, a planet of land and water, a paradise existing as one energy, knowing no boundaries nor countries, no separation of peoples nor impassable borders. From the stars only one Earth exists, a spiritual resonance of life, listening to a revolving entity in an unfathomable universe, where man is but a pebble of time and place. From high above there is one planet, one home, which all things living can claim as their own, belonging to nothing and everything. From the moon and the stars and the darkness of the universe only one Earth exists, one home for humanity, one planet from where we all derive.

If nations were meant to exist the powers that be would surely have created them, much like mountains and rivers and lakes and forests, much like humans, out of chosen clay and borrowed ribs. If borders were destined for humanity then surely Earth would have provided them from the beginning, making human movement impossible, limiting our existence to the territory we were born into, destined to live inside sealed lands, some granted fortune, others unforgiving barrenness. If nations are the destiny of human civilization, why are they so new in our history? Why have they fluctuated so much in such little time, changing, altering, disappearing, being destroyed, being rebuilt and gaining/losing territory over the course of their life cycle? Why do borders shift with each new war and each new geopolitical earthquake?

If territory were a god-given right, then 6.3 billion humans would be born with promised land, a parcel each, in equality and justice, free of jealousy and greed, a gift from the metaphysical, not acquired through exploitation, criminality, fraud, duress, robbery, ethnic cleansing, genocide and dispossession of entire groups of humans. Yet nations and borders were not created along with mountains and rivers and lakes and oceans and valleys, and so have become anomalies eviscerating a once balanced Earth. They cannot be seen from beyond the blue of our skies nor from the black of space. They have never been part of Earth, until the arrival of humankind not too long ago, that is.

For Earth and its natural wonders do not contemplate the complex interactions of tribal man nor the territorial divisions and aspirations of humans. Its lands and waterways have existed for billions of years, just as they will exist for billions more, regardless of how long humanity has left on the planet. They have existed before us, just as they will exist long after as well. Earth’s surface obeys the dictates of nature, not man’s political hegemony nor our ever-changing geopolitical history. It changes according to the laws of science, not those of our species, taking epochs and not centuries to mold and form, in the quiet patience of time and not the sudden movement of technologies. Its environment, air, mountains, forests, oceans and rivers, though destroyed, raped and intoxicated by the hands of man, will in time return to normalcy, ready once more to re-start balances lost and reclaim beauty usurped.

Inside the contours of a physical Earth unmarked by delineated barriers a planet of unsurpassed beauty and wonderment exists, where the colors of sky blend with those of water and land, granting us hues of blue, green, brown and everything in between in an unsurpassed embodiment of life, a potpourri manifesting the natural magnificence as undivided stand the imaginary lines of political separation dividing the diverse amalgam of humanity. Created where no divisions exist out of the manipulated imagination of those elite energies at the top of the human hierarchical pyramid, borders, nothing more than invisible barriers carving out vested interests and maintaining the illusion of territorial division, are the fault lines whose tectonic frictions continue to erode the commonality of man and the unity of the human species.

Humans are a mere hiccup in the long life of the planet, a nanosecond in the twenty-four hour clock that is Earth history, a species that though young, has raped and pillaged the only home it has, destroying and scarring lands, intoxicating the air it breathes and the environment it lives in. We have, like the good mammals we are, marked the lands of Earth as our own, our diverse and multiple tribal groups claiming territory much the same way as our animal cousins, fighting, defending and protecting what we claim is ours. As territorial as many primates and mammals, we have historically claimed our territory based on its availability of resources and its ability to provide for our survival. As such, each tribal group defends the land, and all it provides, with the aggressiveness and violence worthy of the human animal.

The earliest of our tribes spread to all corners of the globe, for hundreds of thousands of years settling the lands of Earth, like a giant tree scattering out its vast branches of humanity, claiming property and resources, fighting off intruders, invaders and wonderers, following game and weather for survival. New groups entering already claimed and protected territory were forced to move on in search of virgin land, continuing on their nomadic journey through the lands of Earth, stopping only upon finding those soils as yet untouched or unpossessed by other groups. The same cycle was repeated over and over again, through the course of many thousands of seasons, with new hunter gatherer tribes, finding already claimed and defended territory, moving on into lands never before seen by the eyes of man, settling unpopulated areas, exploiting resources, defending their homes, watching still more groups of humans pass through their territory in search of uninhabited regions, looking for a land to call home.

For hundreds of thousands of years this is how the planet came to be populated by man, helping spread humanity to all continents and forever setting off a chain of events that would, when combined with the behaviors and instincts ingrained in the human condition, give rise both to the cocktail necessary for ceaseless violence upon each other and a perpetual state of human warfare. With borders now established, with territory to defend and homes to protect, with some lands better than others, richer, more resourceful and better endowed for human survival, with jealousy, greed, power and wealth prevalent among human tribes, with a thirst to possess the lands and riches of others, with the hunger to expand territory and increase wealth, ceaseless and savage fighting among men could only inevitably follow.

It is borders, and the political entities that exist inside and around them that have led, along with religion, to the myriad of problems that have plagued humanity almost from the beginning, dividing, fragmenting, alienating and destroying us, forcing man to fight man, serving to segregate ourselves into distinct tribes unwelcome of competitors, spawning unending war, pillage, rape, invasion, occupation and destruction. From our exodus out of the Great Rift Valley human tribes have fought to maintain their territory from other human groups, protecting the lands they settled and sought, defending, like the primates we are, our homeland, our hunter/gatherer territory, our resources, our livelihood and our modes of survival.

For hundreds of thousands of years territorial borders separating tribes, keeping them at peace only until the next wave of human animal appeared yet again to launch still another war or battle, would only last as long as the tribe defending its home existed. If a native tribe migrated out, was conquered, destroyed or was forced to assimilate to invading tribes borders would shift, just as they always have, according to the dictates of new balance of power, of the exhaustion of resources, of new conquerors and new geopolitical tremors. Thus, throughout history, recorded and never known, the human condition succumbs to an ingrained and instinctual hunger for land and resources, thereby trumping wisdom, foresight and analytical thinking, usually resulting in humans fighting humans for resource-rich territory sought in the lose-lose entanglement called war.

The same continues to apply today to nation-states and their borders, for the tribe has not ceased to exist. Rather, it has simply grown and evolved, rising out of the tribes of bloodlines to the clans of extended families and relationships, splitting apart into new groups due to differences or joining together with other tribes according to bonds forged, beliefs shared or interests protected. Some tribes grew large while others remained small, with the advent of animal domestication and agriculture continuing on their way towards the eventual settlement of towns and villages, later growing to city-states and kingdoms run by pharaohs, kings, Caesars and high priests, many in small proximity to one another, always under threat of barbaric and savage war. Some tribes extended themselves towards empire through war and conquering of other peoples, consolidating and expanding borders and groups, only to eventually fall, just as all empires eventually do. Still other peoples remained stagnant, evolving differently according to environments and circumstances, living at the fringes of known civilization, preferring subsisting in harmony with nature, incorporating sustainable development, remaining nomadic, hunter-gatherers, moving to the calls of migration, natural spirituality and co-existence with fellow tribes.

In time many tribes turned to fiefdoms out of fear of their fellow man, protected by the wealth of nobles and royalty, making the growing masses serfs and indentured servants. Regions of ethnically homogenous peoples banded together for protection in walled cities, maintaining their identity and culture, living in an old world of constant fear, war and insecurity, in regions no longer capable of supporting the growing human population. Virgin land vanished, congestion and competition dominated, resources dwindled as populations rose and frictions grew out of groups suddenly being pushed towards each other. Fiefdoms became united, regions became kingdoms, kingdoms became nations and in time under one crown and banner did tribes find themselves in, led by divine kings and queens, exploited by royalty, nobles and priests, becoming subjects without rights, serfs bound to the land they worked.

Monarchs, having consolidated lands and peoples, set out to colonize new tribes and lands, growing in wealth and power, continuing to subjugate their subjects. Slowly the masses revolted, tired of living in misery and servitude, tired of over-taxation and of possessing no rights. Revolutions exploded throughout the world as a new energy was birthed, the nation-state, political and representative, espousing freedom and democracy, its leaders chosen by the people, supposedly catering to the needs of the masses. Humans suddenly found themselves no longer subservient to the inbreeding-laced, incompetent led, diluted blood of royalty or the vice-like grip, dumbing-down control of the once-mighty Vatican.

With the growing power of some nation-states the once small tribe has become a tribe on steroids, encompassing tremendous wealth and power, possessing huge amounts of land, hundreds of millions of diverse people living inside its borders. Today’s powerful tribes, mainly those living in the fortuitous north, endowed with temperate weather, fertile soils, abundant crops, advantageous global positioning, made extremely wealthy at the expense of the resource-rich south through colonization and able to expand –and maintain – their power, control and wealth thanks to domination of world economic, financial, banking and trade markets, incorporate the vast talents of its people, using the collective brain of its citizens to grow in strength, building the most lethal military machines ever created by man, inventing nuclear weapons, WMDs and solidifying and expanding capitalism, the most corrosive, oppressive and exploitative economic instrument ever invented by humankind.


Without Flags, Without Nations


Today the nation-state is a vast control mechanism designed to subjugate its citizens, keeping the masses purposely ignorant to reality and subservient to the elite and those in power. Mutating capitalism with feudalism, masking serfdom with the comforts of materialism, hiding slavery with the crumbs of consumerism, the nation-state is an outgrowth of human hierarchy, of the perpetual exploitation of those at the bottom by those at the top. Today’s nations, nothing more than tribes fed vast quantities of human growth hormones, becoming behemoths addicted to wealth and power, are well oiled machines clandestinely enriching and empowering those already at the top through the blood, sweat and tears of the masses.

Through the control and manipulation of the people using a vast assortment of tools, the elite are therefore able to maintain power, seemingly able to do as they wish while the masses linger in complacency and pacific lethargy. Retaining the loyalty and the blind trust of the masses is critical in order to maintain the status quo, and this the Establishment does extremely well. The illusion presented, the fantasy espoused and the manipulated behaviors controlled must be pervasive and omnipotent, conditioned into the citizenry from cradle to grave the benefits of the state, hiding truths and reality, espousing fictions and lies in order to maintain balance, power and the indispensable yet ever-threatening blind loyalty of the people. Based on faith in the system, brainwashed into the mind from an early age, the citizens of a nation become ardent supporters of the same system designed to exploit and control their lives. Welcome to the nation-state at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

The conditioning and manipulation of minds begins seemingly from birth as the idea of the nation-state is planted into the young, still-developing human brain. Like organized religion, the system knows that in order to maintain lifelong loyalty and dependence of its subjects, it must begin brainwashing from the earliest moments of life. It must begin eroding the naturally inquisitive human mind from the beginning, instead implanting the seeds of lifelong loyalty and subservience. It must bombard the still-innocent, naïve mind to its dictates, lest the mind begin questioning its tenets as it matures and reaches the age of reason. And so, blitzkrieged with the cocktails of nationalism, children are transformed from little primates into loyal servants of the nation, abusing the innocence of youth so as to not confront the wisdom and experience that comes with age.

The system knows that in order to achieve its army of worker bees and soldier ants it must use the recipe used to conquer souls, perfected for nearly 2,000 years, of breaking the human mind early, implanting ideas and beliefs that in adulthood will be nearly impossible to erode. Hereditary conditioning of minds, personalities and behaviors works best in youth, when the mind is still fragile and innocent, when the brain is growing and susceptible to believe almost anything if it is manipulated long enough, pervasively enough. Thus, the process by which youngsters are indoctrinated and made loyal to the state commences in schools as children embark on a journey of education that will span at least a decade and a half through a purposefully corrosive, under funded and manipulative state education system whose curriculum caters to the interests of the nation and the elite that run it.

From the beginning young children are subjected to countless hours of indoctrination to the state, becoming obedient citizens submissive to authority, taught to never question the very fabric and foundations of the nation and those that lead it. They are molded into becoming one more cog in the system by a classroom environment and teaching structure pilfering individual thought and expression, making youngsters conformist creatures of habit taught always to trust in the system, in those governing and leading. Forced to listen, learn and read what the Establishment wants taught, children begin incorporating what they see and hear as fact, in their young innocence believing in the altruism of their nation’s government.

The idea of the nation they reside in, and of the undying loyalty to it, is firmly ingrained by curricula, teachers and textbooks. Dozens of songs espousing nationalism, patriotism and the historical fictions of the nation are taught, forever remaining entrenched in one’s mind. Books whitewashing, glossing over or altogether erasing the reality of a nation’s troubled past, with its incessant crimes against humanity, its evil deeds, its wars, its invasions, mass murders, genocides, ethnic cleansing, forms of market colonialism, wars of economic depravity and continued exploitation of peoples are disseminated throughout the nation, revising the history its future citizens learn. Instead, romanticized stories of myth and fable are inculcated, making ordinary men seem god-like, bigger than life beings never capable of wrong. Elite exploiters of human flesh become Founding Fathers; criminals and murderers become Presidents; racists become Supreme Court justices; members of the Establishment become Secretaries and legions of traveling salesmen turned political prostitutes become Congressmen. In the world of make-believe, where truth is turned upside down and falsity becomes reality, it is children who absorb legend best, and it is they who become targets of fictional stories masquerading as history textbooks.

For years children are indoctrinated that the nation is the supreme manifestation of good and its principles, no matter how detrimental they may be, are to remain unsurpassed and unquestioned. All citizens must conform, obey and follow its policies, always remaining loyal and faithful to its actions. Throughout the course of a child’s passage through the education system, the sacredness of the red, white and blue, along with that of the national anthem is conditioned into minds, becoming sacrosanct relics, to be preserved and cherished. The idea of government as wise and beyond reproach is taught, making faith in the system a sought-after virtue in all citizens.

And so, for years the same process is repeated again and again, year after year, grade after grade, each semester that passes brainwashing a new piece of information into developing minds. The truth is never revealed, love of country is bombarded and slowly but surely, through methodical and systemic manipulation of minds, the young primate brain succumbs to the barrage of patriotism-filled teachings, becoming, over time, the obedient, unthinking, unquestioning and complacent loyal citizen of the nation. With a decade and a half advantage over the now maturing and reasoning adult mind, the system has laced our thoughts with its tools of loyalty, succeeding in quieting our questions, controlling our energies and implanting the pacific acceptance of the system into our being.

As adults we have not a chance, really, as the apparatus of brainwashing has achieved its mission long before we have had an opportunity to think for ourselves. Before we know it, the programming of our youth is resurrected when we least expect it, attacking our adult life whenever the nation needs our subservience most. Suddenly all that has ever been imparted onto us rushes our minds, making us blind as bats and as obtuse as earthworms. The love of nation inculcated, the sacrifice to flag learned, the patriotism manipulated and the loyalty to government preached are, at the flip of a switch or at the birth of a new Pearl Harbor, released like adrenaline rushing our bodies, making us drones to unwise undertakings and subservient slaves to the dictates of the elite.

Rabid like wild dogs, the human animal is once more reincarnated, mutating our placid selves into conduits of aggressive thought and violent activity. Tens of millions of citizens, forever raised in clandestine manipulation to the doctrines of nationalism are, like Pavlovian dogs, awakened from their sleep by the calls for war. Wisdom becomes non-existent and the logical, analytical human brain becomes lost in the haze of the warmongering frenzy captivating the population. The silent calls begging restraint, peace and non-violence get blown away by the roar of war drums beckoning us forward and the sounds of the war machine turning on its engines.

The triumph of this hereditary conditioning, through years exported into a citizen’s adulthood, can best be seen in times of war, national disaster or forced sacrifice, when the masses become enraged with the parameters of nationalism, becoming easily led and manipulated entities through the jingoism extolled by leaders, governments and propaganda. In patriotism the masses rise in unison with the state, becoming the marching army beating to the drums of war, accepting of loss of life or limb, willing to fight those deemed enemies of the state, ready to sacrifice their rights and freedoms for the sake of the nation.

Blindly following blatant lies and deceits, ignorantly believing the bully pulpit of criminals and murderers, wrapping themselves up in colorful flags of division, nationalism and false senses of superiority, millions hear the trumpets of mobilization programmed from birth into their hypnotized minds. In a short period of time the culture of war is reintroduced, those peoples chosen by the Establishment as enemies of the state are ostracized, targeted and attacked, and a military, war-like mentality grips the nation. The Establishment and the government they control have achieved their goals. Years of patience and investment in our so-called educations have paid off. The Establishment can do with us as it pleases, sending our loved ones to die, our children to experience hell on Earth, returning maimed in body and mind, blatantly and under cover of legality pillaging our treasure and taxes, eviscerating our rights and freedoms, tarnished our reputation and creating the energies of action-reaction which will invariably lead to our karma exploding in shambles.

Nationalism and patriotism are as corrosive to human interaction as anything ever created by the human animal. Love of country, blind patriotism, aggressive nationalism, ignorant xenophobia, dumbed down unenlightenment, manipulated fear and programmed insecurity fuse to form a most malignant cocktail of human wickedness, resulting in the historical failure to contain the human animal. It is during these times of the human animal unleashed, such as is found today in America, when humanity as a whole suffers the consequences of those creations of man called borders and nations. It is during these times when the population of a super tribe is inundated most with feelings of superiority over all other peoples surrounding them. Those false enemies, which government and Establishment propaganda have over the years created, suddenly become imminent threats that must be destroyed. It is in times of nationalistic fervor that logic ceases to exist, violent thought grows, racism prospers and aggressiveness expands. All such lunacy for love of country, for love of flag and for love of government.

The division of humanity into nations and separate peoples is a way for the Establishment of each country to better control the population. Borders, flags, governments and the tools of nationalism create divisions, threats, competitors and enemies, making six billion people rivals, not friends. Separately the Establishment can better control us, making us fight each other for the resources and power the elite need to keep their grip over us. Along with religion, nationalism – or super tribalism – has led to the waging of more wars and the death of more humans than anything ever created by man or nature. It is corrosive and worthless, with warlike leaders exploiting our love of tribe in order to make warlike peoples of us all. Division of peoples leads to enemies created and declared, where the poor of one nation fight the poor of another for the wealth and power of the elite.

The nation is the reincarnation of the feudal estate on a much grander scale, yet serfs we all are, obedient to our feudal masters, fighting for their lands and riches, for their accumulated and growing power, while we sacrifice treasure and loved ones for no apparent benefit to the masses. Nationalism forces us to fight fellow humans who are made enemies, though in reality they are no different than you or me. For years we are made to believe in their evil through the propaganda bombarded into our lives. For years we demonize who they are and what they stand for, yet in reality their differences to us are minimal. Yet the elite need growing wealth and power and this is accomplished through war. War needs enemies, and nations need evildoers in order to mobilize a nationalistic population.

The nation is yet another tool of the elite, creating barriers to the inevitable amalgamation of humanity that is as certain as cold in the winter. The movement is obvious for all to see, from the very beginning the joining of humanity has been in motion, going through its evolving steps in time, dancing to the beats of mankind’s slow progression from the mini-tribe to the super-tribe. Today the planet is a global village, with more diverse group interaction than ever. Unions and partnerships of diversity continue to increase; peoples of hundreds of various nations now comprise a single country. In several continents ethnicity no longer determines national identity. The mixture of racial and color lines only keeps expanding, freeing fear based on ignorance the more we interact with each other. In the last century the coming together of the people of the world has taken a dramatic step forward thanks to technology and progress. The inevitable joining of hands of the world entire is not too far off, a mere blink of an eye in human existence. Perhaps, pragmatically, we are 100 years away at best, perhaps 250 at worst.

Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of waiting so many decades, for the Earth is reeling and humanity continues to push the envelope of self-destruction. The future must begin now, for this thing called nationalism, competition among countries and the pursuit of resources will engulf our only home in flames before too long. The fraternity of tribes must come together, the brotherhood and sisterhood of peoples must commence, for the super-tribes see the dwindling supplies of resources and the ever-growing demand of its citizens, and soon will stop at nothing to quash rivals and competitors, just as human tribes have done from the very beginning of human life. Time is a luxury we no longer have, for we are killing ourselves through the pollution we excrete and the carbons we release. Earth is being transformed and the ramifications of what we are doing to her will wipe our species from the planet.

The greatest threat facing humanity is humanity. Nationalism and religion continue to devastate our potential. They continue to resurrect the human animal embedded in all of us, making us destroyers of the planet and of human life. The division of peoples based on super-tribes has always led to battles, fights and wars. There is no reason this will stop before blazing holocausts envelope our planet and destroy our civilization. Nations and borders are illusory, tools of segregation and control, designed to divide and conquer, exploit and subjugate. They are the root holding human wickedness together, never allowing us to exorcise the demons of war from our midst.

We are all in this together, forged out of one common African ancestor. We are human, one and all, born without flags, without borders and without nations, spawned naked to politics and in harmony with nature. The nation is man-made, as is patriotism and nationalism, creations of our animal selves. Our loyalty should be to the Earth and one another, not to the intangible fantasies of division or the imaginary lines of control.

From the zenith of space our eyes now see monolithic snow-covered mountain ranges and fertile valleys, great plains and dense jungles, expansive oceans and lush forests, arid deserts and mesmerizing gorges, all the continuance of billions of years of a changing planet, all formed by nature, all visible from the darkness of the universe. We see one undivided Earth free of demarcation lines, tangible borders and separate nations. We are the mega-tribe, from one, many, from many, one. Divisions based on nation-states will inevitably disappear, becoming an extinct and archaic mechanism of an advancing human civilization. The nation state has served its purpose; it has now become a liability. We are now citizens of the world, not of countries, forever loyal to Earth and each other, not the Establishment, knowing that separate we will fall but together we will prosper.

Where flags do not rise and borders do not divide is where our journey must commence, leaving behind the divisions, the aggression, the violence and the wars for so long hemorrhaging humanity to death. Citizens of the world are we, united and strong, wishing an end to enemies and separations, no longer seeking solace in borders and national boundaries, aware that the current system is leading us all into ruination. A better way exists, one based on cooperation, not competition, communalism, not individualism, togetherness, not isolation.

Into the future we must head, where flags do not rise and borders do not divide we must stand, transforming our world and our way of life. If we fail the archaic nation state/tribal system will continue to destroy us from within, forever clenching us in the dungeon and demons of the human animal. If we succeed, perhaps a new dawn of human enlightenment awaits us and with it our salvation as a species as well.

The Evolution of Revolution, Part I of III: The Human Animal

As long as humankind has walked the plains of Earth, from our origins in the jungles of Africa to our great Diaspora out of savannas and into all corners of the globe, we have had to wage ceaseless battle with the demons living inside the human condition. Embedded in our psyche, ingrained in our being, passed down generation after generation like a torch of eternal damnation lighting the way through the deep caverns of perpetual human tribulation, our demons have haunted us from the beginning, continuing to plague our existence with the dawn of each new generation and the passing of those previous who without success failed to exorcise from their midst the corrosive energy that until this day refuses to dissipate from our less than perfect nature.

From the beginning humanity has been afflicted with a thirst for violence, barbarism and savagery, born in the billion years-old primordial ooze from which all Earth creatures emanated from, out of the necessity for survival, mutated over time with our continual evolution through the epochs of ceaseless sunrises and sunsets, from our manifestation as infinitesimal bacteria to our development as primitive fish to that of amphibians gasping the first breaths of oxygen, to small lizards, rat-like mammals struggling to survive in a world of dinosaurs and finally, after an incalculable and incomprehensible passage of years which the human mind is incapable of comprehending, to our arrival as primates not more than a few million years ago.

In our human brains lie the layers molded in our evolution, of constant battles for survival, of ceaseless competition and mutation, of wars for territory and hierarchy, of fights for genetic supremacy and the procreation of offspring, of competition for food and ecosystems and sexual mates. Our brains and bodies are the product of this constant fight for survival, molded through every epoch of life on Earth and every organism we ever were. In our physical bodies and our psychological minds can be seen the end results of hundreds of millions of years of what we have been and how far we have come, where in nature only the fittest survive and the adaptable thrive.

The world of nature is harsh, brute and not easily survivable, where to get left behind in the constant war of genetic mutation means near certain extinction and where natural selection is the ultimate arbiter of success or failure. We are the product of this endless battle in the animal world, where the fight for life, food, territory and genetic supremacy is waged on a daily basis. The human primate, along with his animal cousins, is shackled to his animal instincts and his mammalian psychology, unable to escape our behaviors or our emotions no matter how hard our theology-induced ego wishes them away.

We are a product of Earth, of hundreds of millions of years of life, of ingrained behaviors and mutated bodies, an entity formed from the innermost reaches of our primordial brain to the outer extensions of our more modern, primate shaped minds. In body and mind, creatures chained to nature we remain, unable to escape an evolution millions of years in the making, a work in progress whose end result is the human body and mind we possess today. For evolution of man has taken hundreds of millions of years, from primordial ooze to our African Diaspora, scattering to all regions of the planet, creating the diversity we see today, based on environmental factors, the mixing of genetic combinations, ethnic segregation and a plethora of genetic mutations.

We must remember that modern man is only a few hundred thousand years old, and civilization is perhaps 10,000 years in the making, both a fraction of time in the long journey of Earth and of life itself. We have changed little physically during this time, and our psychological alterations have been minimal. We remain the primates we have always been, for evolution works in long epochs and not centuries, in hundreds of thousands of years and not through the decades of modern man.

Evolution cannot be fast forwarded, neither by fundamentalist fable or a doctor’s scalpel, not through Botox, silicone or corporate capitalism, not by living the delusion of Hollywood fiction or perfection. It works through nature and not religion, in scientific fact and not primitive mythology, in tangible evidence and not metaphysical fantasies. It can be seen, studied and proven in the quite obvious historical layers of geologic soil and in the reality of nature’s wonders, by reading books, not burning them, by using common sense, not blind faith, and by understanding that we are products of a very long evolution of life on Earth, molded from the mammalian world of tens of millions of years, not created out of instantaneous appearances or blessed clay or male ribs in the image of a male god that has never been seen or heard from.

We are creatures born to survive, feed, live and procreate, like every organism in the planet instinctively passing our genes, through the selection of the best possible mate, to our progeny, assuring our lineage survives at least one more generation. Like other mammals, we compete for power, for mates, for territory, for resources and for hierarchy. We are products of natural selection, the most aggressive hominid to ever evolve in the history of the planet. Our species was best at adapting to a changing environment, best at mutating to the tunes of evolution, therefore thriving as social groups, out-competing fellow primates for territory and resources, outlasting those species made extinct either by environmental factors, their inability to evolve or from our aggressively violent domination.

We were so successful, so aggressive, using our collective brain so well, that in a historical blink of an eye we helped make extinct competitors, predators and prey, everywhere man migrated to, every land we journeyed into. Our aggressive nature and our ability to dominate the natural world through our group interaction guaranteed success over fellow competitors. We helped make extinct the Neanderthal, a sub-human species that lived and thrived in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years until their disappearance about 40,000 thousand years ago. Coincidentally, and not unexpectedly, their demise and disappearance from the face of Earth surfaced around the same time as the arrival of humans onto their lands.

Throughout every continent, in every region, regardless of time, the arrival of man has signaled the gradual extinction of many other species. Forests are decimated, ecosystems assaulted and species hunted to extinction. The order and balance in nature quickly vanish upon the introduction of the human species into a land. Today this can be seen with the unnerving and gradual evisceration of entire ecosystems, countless forests, jungles, deserts, oceans and rivers under tremendous pressure from the insatiable needs and wants of 6.3 billion humans slowly gorging themselves to death in a feeding frenzy the Earth cannot sustain for much longer.

The human condition, that behavior of the powerful group brain acting in unison, combined with our seemingly perpetual aggression and violent inclinations, helped us prosper at the expense of everything else, including our fellow humans. It assured us of becoming the supreme rulers of Earth, as well as its destroyers. In the natural progression of man it was those early tribes who were most adept at laying waste to other tribes that were assured, thanks to natural selection, of thriving, surviving and continuing along the harsh road that was human societal evolution. It was only the most aggressive, violent and warlike among us, those who outfought, outthought, outflanked and outwitted others that continued into the future.

Those that lacked the precepts of savagery, aggressiveness or the tendencies of war were either destroyed as a culture or assimilated into those that were, becoming entities lost to the dustbins of history. Natural selection therefore rewarded the most warlike among us with survival while those lacking in aggression were erased from memory. These traits, behavior and characteristics of survival were then passed down generation after generation, assuring that only the strongest, most warlike prospered and survived into the future. Competition among tribes, like that among sports teams, escalated tactics, aggression and technology, slowly eliminating weaker tribes and eventually pitting the strongest armies in battle. Again, natural selection among early tribes and later eventual city-states, empires and nations assured the rewarding of aggression with survival. For hundreds of thousands of years evolution has worked its magic. Ten-thousand years of civilization is but a manifestation of this reality, for evolution does not work in centuries, but in long epochs.

Thus, the extinction of the weak was made possible by the survival of the strong and over time, the tribes we descend from learned that to continue living in a world brutal and savage they themselves would have to become as warlike, aggressive and as violent as any other tribe. Out of self-preservation thousands of generations of our ancestors have had to unleash the human animal upon the world of man, feeding a vicious cycle that has forever accelerated the ever-expanding arsenal of weapons, their technological innovation, the war strategies of armies, the defensive strategies of those threatened and the increased inevitability of human self-annihilation.

In a world of tribe versus tribe, competing for finite land and resources, only those who developed the deadliest weapons, the most savage battle plans, the most creative contingencies and the most aggressive and violent tactics against fellow competitors survived, thereby assuring their continuance as a tribe. This process would be repeated constantly, over the course of our history, as new competitors entered an area, as new powers emerged or as the tribe expanded. The principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest applied for hundreds of thousands of years to human tribes just as it does today in the animal world. Consequently, humanity today is the end result of this macabre form of evolution, the descendants of those tribes who out of necessity had to evolve the violence and aggression needed to survive in a world of perpetual fighting, brutality and slaughter, where tribes either killed or were killed.

For hundreds of thousands of years humans have had to fight to live and survive, learning, evolving and adapting in growing aggressive sophistication to the dictates of war and of man fighting man. Our ancestors before and our descendents to come have been and will continue to be immersed in a ceaseless battle pitting tribe versus tribe, making the most wicked organism on Earth ever more violent. We have been bioengineered over entire epochs of humankind’s evolution to unleash violence and war upon our fellow humans, making aggression an ingrained tribal and human instinct much the same way other species evolve traits and characteristics due to their need to survive. The exigencies brought on by millennia of tribal competition and perpetual war have made sure that we have the potential to become the most violent manifestation of humanity the world has ever witnessed, a byproduct of all that has come before.

We have been bred throughout our existence to wage war upon our fellow man, trained through natural selection to kill, maim, destroy and accept violence as a normal human activity. Much like we breed animals to suit our pleasures, wants and needs, choosing particular behaviors, characteristics, sizes or colors through careful genetic manipulation, so too in similar circumstances have we been bred, over the course of our existence as a species, by a Pandora’s Box opened by humanity itself, in a vicious circle that only assures that our progeny continue carrying the human animal inside. For one more generation, then, the flame of eternal damnation will be lit, carried as a burden and as a reminder of what humanity truly is, until yet another generation takes the place of the one before, inheriting a flame that might soon light the world entire in nuclear holocaust.

In our wake destruction, violence and suffering soon follow. It is the human condition that makes it so, for in our exceptional survival lies a fusion of aggression and lack of forethought unmatched by all other species on Earth. Our condition has assured us of the dying planet we live in today and of the ceaseless violence and destruction that has followed us everywhere humankind has walked. It has forever condemned our species to a world of war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, death, destruction, maimings, rapes, razing and burning of cities, and of untold levels of suffering.

In every corner of the planet, in every century of our short rule on Earth war, conquest, invasion, occupation, fighting and battles have been waged, perpetually afflicting every generation to ever open its eyes in birth and close them for the last time in death. Aggression against our fellow humans seems to be a historical constant, a human imperative whose consequences are never learned from, as prevalent and as old as anything else ingrained in the human condition. This propensity towards violence seems like an instinct enveloping our psyches, an attached aggression unleashed at the expense of our fellow beings that are seen as different in ethnicity, color, culture, religion, tribe or belief, or those that have become competitors to territory, resources or to the prevailing order of power and control.

We are ruthless to each other, oftentimes unleashing the human animal upon entire armies of men as well as on innumerable innocents living in towns and cities, indiscriminately destroying the beauty of humanity as well as the beating hearts and thinking minds of men, women and children. Our barbarity and savagery is unmatched by any species on Earth, proven over and over again both by the slaughter and violence every generation is witness to and the violence that refuses to dissipate from our short yet tumultuous history.

In history recorded and history lost can be witnessed the ceaseless propensity toward human violence and wickedness through the preying upon by one tribe of man onto another. For plunder, wealth, expansion, power, sexual mates, land, resources and the overall thirst for ego and selfishness, tribal violence is as endemic as the continued plague-like expansion of the human race, as unceasing and unstoppable, as ingrained in our existence as our greatest achievements and triumphs. Through the passage of human time, in every continent, in every land, the battle between tribes has been unending, a ritual of passage granted to each new generation.

There is a pattern to this incessant behavior, one manifested throughout time immemorial whose evidence can be seen in ancient cities razed, in the rubble and ruins of once great coronations of civilizations, in the evisceration of entire cultures, in the writings of historians, in the images recorded in photos and videos, in the rise and fall of powers, in the archeological record and in the worldwide building of defensive walled fortifications enveloping a vast number of old cities, in every corner of the globe, whether they still stand or have long since been buried by the sands of time.

Walled fortifications, more than anything else, show us the historical insecurity and fear gripping humans the world over. From the Americas to Asia to Africa to Europe and all points in between, our ancestors feared their fellow humans, building walls around their dwellings and their centers of commerce and political activity. It was fear of human tribes, those enemies, rivals, competitors and invaders always lurking that demanded ingenuity and communal undertakings to, at least psychologically, portend an aura of security from which to live in some semblance of comfort. Fortifications show us the constant threat of attack, invasion, violence, destruction and war humanity has been under for most of its history, weather living in savannas or caves or city-states or feudal estates or castles or towns or kingdoms or empires or nations.

In these walls surrounding many cities, some still standing, some crumbling, some seen only through the investigations of scientists, can we see our species for what it has always been, regardless of time, regardless of circumstances and irrespective of region, namely, a most violent and wicked race of primates whose human animal lingers inside, possessing us from within, embedded as an instinct of survival, unleashing aggression against our fellow species.

It has never been contained, for it continues to decimate just as it has from the beginning. The human animal prospers inside our psyches, for evolution of mammal, combined with that of man, has given birth to an animal both intelligent and savage, with brain still primitive in thought yet sophisticated in ingenuity. As long as the human animal remains possessing over humankind, as long as we fail to exorcise it from our existence it will be the purveyor of wickedness and war, death and destruction of everything human. The human animal needs to be purged from within, for it threatens the very foundations and future of a species that continues to self-destruct in ways no organism ever has.

Our only salvation lies in understanding our evolution, our animal selves, our evolutionary psychology, our history and the mammalian world, of which we are part of, regardless of what primitive fables and thought tell us. These are the keys to unlocking the mystery of why violence is as old as humanity itself, and why it remains unending, even when we can see, thanks to history and growing awareness, that it continues to plague us seemingly without a rival putting a stop to its corrosive actions upon our world.

For as long as we have existed the human animal has been around, laying waste to billions of human energies, inflicting unending suffering on humans the world over. Why can we not control it? Why can we not stop it? Why must war and human carnage be a constant in humanity, becoming perpetual and wicked, unable to be contained even when the books of history scream ominous warnings and lessons in their chapters? All around the world ruins of cities lost to human malice and to time litter the landscape, built and rebuilt, only to be razed again and again. All around the world the histories of every region show a pattern of the human animal failing to stop the virus afflicting it. If it has never been stopped, what makes us think it will be halted overnight?

Across oceans, across jungles, across mountain ranges, across the scorching temperatures of deserts history records similar patterns among different races, cultures and ethnicities, all pointing to one unmistakable reality: the human animal transcending time, place, distance and societies to resurrect violence and war and death and suffering and human wickedness onto all peoples at all times. It is all-encompassing, a pestilence upon the world of man and upon the lands of Earth, similar in time and place, seemingly unstoppable, a demon chaining humankind to the dungeons of the abyss.

The human animal is us, never stopped, never contained, never understood and forever destined to control the lives we lead and the course we choose to take. The human animal is the catalyst that makes the inevitability that is human self-destruction a reality. From our long evolution as a species the human animal was born. Only in humankind’s enlightenment and rebirth will we be able to celebrate its death.