We have a long way to go

It’s very easy and comforting to think that because we have laws of equality we, therefore, click our heels and the playing board is level.  Maybe today in a race; but what about all those who got ahead at the expense of the ones who had their legs tied together in the race years ago and still lag behind?  What about those that we consider icons and, therefore, never think they are little more than the likes of you or I; and worse yet, exploit the weak.  Do we have so little confidence in our own human abilities that we need gods?

We think because we have icons leading our way that they can be citizens above suspicion.  BTW, that was the title of a 1970 movie where a police captain was investigating a crime.  Little did the audience find out until the end that it was the captain who was the criminal!  What a surprise!

Such is the case with the likes of the Rick Paternos, and a gazillion other elected officials’ scandals that we are “shocked” that these crimes even exist today.  Yet, the internet is awash with porn.  So, if these are such shocking issues, how are the porn sites surviving, and proliferating?

Perhaps if we took the time to ask our own questions to understand what makes man click, rather than just following some deity given scripts we’ve been handed, we can get our arms around the problem.  It’s the understanding that, as humanity, we are all equal; no one superior to another regardless of appearance, religion or culture.  We all have the same genetic makeup and share the same human universals; not to mention practically the same blood line.  Yet, we’ve committed atrocities against one another based on the dogma and mesmerization of superiority.  Sandusky, Paterno, the Pope, you start your own list.

We all live with our comforting convictions of Frank Zappa’s “it can’t happen here.”  Yet, it does, and right under our noses.  What is it that enables these situations to occur undetected until it’s always past post time?  Maybe it’s the comfort that many seek from a code that, if you believe, it can’t happen here?

It’s that code that if you belong to some fellowship where there are dictates of conduct, one expects all believers to follow.  Yet, it’s those at the top, or those above suspicion that believe they have a license to, literally, creep beyond.

The damning thing is the silence.  An assistant coach witnessed a crime, but the gravity of the crime didn’t weigh as a murder where possibly an alarm would have been sounded louder and earlier.  Why is child molestation any less of a crime?  Was it shock and bewilderment on the part of the young assistant and he sought the wisdom of a Paterno’s counsel; only to be diverted to a higher authority---that never happened?  There’s little difference between this incidence and the pedophilia in the church.  A cover-up---we’ll handle it in-house; we can take care of our own.  Yet, to the parishioners, or fans, they expected more, without exceptions or conditions; and they abdicated their responsibility based on that unfounded trust.  You get what you enable.

Oddly enough, we can’t be surprised.  The conditions that enabled this conduct were established by the very structure of these institutions; whether it be the church, football, baseball or any other glorifying venue.  We place our clergy above suspicion along side of our sports icons as well as our politicians, our business gurus and others.  Where have we lost our way?  Instead of individual accomplishment and responsibility we deify our leaders because we fail to take responsibility for our own surveillance and actions. And further, we abdicate our responsibility when we deify our leaders and expect godly conduct---when they’re no more than mortals like us. 

What makes man click?  What has been man’s inhumanity to man?  Footprints of Hate tells all.

So with the human condition, the appeal of porn, and the reaches of humanity, one can’t feign we are shocked---lest we live in your own fantasyland; only that it happened where it did, and to the ones we placed above suspicion. Just keep our heads in the righteous sand; we have a long way to go---until the next event.

No Flies !