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BS ‘n’ About…
Olympics for Peace
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Every other year the nations of our world gather to celebrate sport, competition, and camaraderie in the spirit of the ancient Greek Olympic games. For two weeks the people of earth try to set aside their differences and work together to create something whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. With unfettered capitalism fueling the fire and the media keeping it in the spotlight, the whole world tunes in, united in common cause, mesmerized by the spectacle. If we can come together for something as relatively unimportant as sport, shouldn’t we be able to do the same for the major issues which affect the very survival of our species?
Never has our world been so small. Hop a plane and be on the other side of the world in hours. Pick up a phone and talk to the other side of the world right now. Turn on the ‘net and, for all intents and purposes, there is no other side of the world. Never has our world been so small.
For the first time in our evolution as a species, we can hold a town meeting that all of us can attend. Never has the opportunity for world peace been so great. For the first time in human history, the lofty principles of democracy, as formulated by the ancient Greeks and built upon by our Founding Fathers, are logistically feasible.
The internet makes it possible to force a representational democracy to actually represent its constituency. The media makes it possible to shine a light on the smoke-filled rooms. Technology is starting to make possible darn near anything.
It is time to gain control of the greed that impoverishes the many to benefit the few, the superstitions that make us fear, the prejudices that make us hate, and the ambitions that take us places we don’t want to go. We are lemmings headed for the abyss. But, for all the billions of us that there are, it is but a small handful of the rich and powerful who determine the pace and direction of our march. This must change.
We need to bring together the political, business, and spiritual leaders of our world, shine the spotlight on them, and give them incentive to act in our best interests rather than their own. Assuming that most of humanity just wants to be left alone to live in peace, and doesn’t really care who it pays its taxes to, this is not the way things are being handled currently. We live in a world that benefits the few at the expense of the many. That is not a recipe for a successful future. That is a recipe for terrorism, a recipe for Orwell’s “1984”.
Humanity is at a turning point. We are one madman in a bunker away from a scorched-earth policy that returns us all to the Stone Age. We are one enlightened ‘ah-hah!’ away from a Golden Age that leaves our primitive past behind us.
The odds are against us. One misguided zealot can preside over the destruction of all we’ve built. But it will take the combined efforts of all of us to maneuver past that pitfall to the Golden Age that lies beyond.
We. the People need to start paying attention and demanding that our leaders start acting in our best interests, in our children’s best interests, in humanity’s best interests. We need to shine the spotlight on them and bend them to our will. We need to start setting the agenda and quit allowing ourselves to be distracted by the sideshows. We need to quit allowing ourselves to be told what we think and what our neighbors think. We need our leaders to shut up and listen for a change.
We need to throw a big, splashy spectacle, force those who speak for us in front of the cameras, and not let them adjourn until they’ve solved the disputes in accordance with our wishes. We’re tired of dying for our faith, scrimping to benefit the economy, and being gerrymandered into insignificance to benefit one party or the other. We’re tired of being used. We’re tired of being lied to. We, the People are just plain tired. Let the Games begin.
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