HEARING VOICES
In the first War of all Wars we who live fought, with Michael, on the side of YHWH. Our weapon was – our voices. More to the point, our Weapon was our Voice.
The World we live in today has its wars also. The jungles of Mankind’s covetousness harbour conflict on every side. Death walks the streets of every town and city, be those streets tar, concrete or dust. Back-alley denizens and thugs share a common desire with camo-clad revolutionaries, rebels and outright murderers.
By far however, the more effective killers wear suave suits and talk softly in salons.
For the sake of Death, even the forces of nature can intervene. Presently we see the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in Burma, where up to a million and a half are believed to either have died or been dispossessed so far. The point of recent history is that without early intervention many who might have survived will succumb to disease and starvation. This has led to a minor skirmish in the War of the Voices as those in the West who wish to denigrate the Burmese Generals cast scorn on their local attempts to aid the victims and their refusal to permit a massive flood of western intervention.
It remains to be seen which ‘voice’ will win the day. In that context it must be remembered the Burmese, civilians or leadership, do not have the luxury of the typical Westerner’s value set. In Burma a life is worth only a life. A life in Asia is not measured in terms of cars sold or condos promoted in between telecasts. In the West the rush is to get advertising, any kind of promotional cover, amidst ‘News’ of which ever disaster is currently the flavour of the month. In Asia, despite determined intrusions by western media and coca cola, a life is still pretty much worth only a life.
From the perspective of the Burmese Generals there is possibly an upside to the thinning of opposition to their rule. Given that is, the majority of Burmese people might secretly prefer another, if undefined, leadership.
So the War of the Voices will be interesting here – will the Generals’ indifference win or will growing calls in the West for ‘Compulsory Aid’ prevail? heh The invasion of the Care Givers.
This is a surprising and unnoticed harbinger of matters which will ultimately play out but we shall not dwell here on that matter.
Rather let us look at the many niche wars taking place where similar death and destruction take place daily between the ‘photo ops’ and the ‘sports pages’.
In Lebanon today the unofficial count is eleven dead in a pointless skirmish between Hezbollah and the ragtag Lebanese Army, or at least forces of Law. It’s hard to tell often where the army is the disheveled bunch of ragtags or the more disciplined terrorists. From the point of view presented by the insurgent favouring media and their ever present cameras it must seem the ‘resistance fighters’ are more orderly.
That has to be the case because plainly the assortment of armies around the world who are ‘fighting’ against insurgents have yet to make the actual decision to fight. Even Putin spent more time marshalling his forces in the Voice War than ensuring total success in the fight. Depending on your point of view Putin either lost or won – he’s a modern hero in parts of Russia and a suspected villain in the US. If he had simply leveled Georgia and Chechnya nobody in the West would have physically intervened and the Voice War would remain in its present status quo.
In Africa you could throw a dart at a map of the continent and not land outside an area of conflict. From Cape Town to Egypt there is one sort or another of bloodletting under way. Zimbabwe? Congo? Sudan! Kenya. The Voice War over Africa is endlessly muted by the need to be absolutely politically correct in avoiding placing the blame on anybody black. The UN, elsewhere characterised as ‘Useless Nothing’ and various similar iconic and detractive epithets, calls repeatedly (this is the Voice!) for intervention, for Peace, for food or water or bandages, for anything but the only things not in short supply are bullets and hatred to date.
In Europe we hear of the Good Old Dart persisting in its ever British eccentricity, where determinedly even handed to the finish, enemies of the state are accorded better treatment than the locals, for fear once again of seeming to take sides in the blatant violence offered against them. This is an interesting case of the ‘Voice’ seeming to obtain victory – but it’s merely the victim rolling over in the rapist’s bed, a typical syndrome throughout History. They are not serious about it. They are not really suffering yet.
Elsewhere throughout Europe we see the Islamists waving their burning national flags (pick a country – any country) and screaming abuse at simple herdsmen and shop owners who want merely to live out their days without jihad. Germans, Finns, Dutchmen and French are not serious about it. They are not really suffering yet.
No need to continue with these boring written accounts.
Let us look instead at your EYES. Next time you look at the seeming destruction in Burma, tell yourself the condition of the housing and countryside is normal! Realise these people do not live in the lap of Western luxury. Their lives ARE god-forsaken by western standards – but not by the yardsticks used in Asia.
Look at the streetscapes of Lebanon, Chechnya, Gaza, Sudan, Arche’ and increasingly in French cities and elsewhere throughout the West, through to the extremity of the Twin Towers and SEE. This is the normal condition.
This is as good as it gets.
No. This is as good as it got.
Today, near here, a teenager who had tormented a kitten to death and who was originally sentenced to a month in gaol but appealed, was released on an eighteen month good behaviour bond. Will he mend his ways? The RSPCA was outraged. Had he served the month behind bars would he have mended his ways? Possibly, in fact, he may have come out a more hardened criminal while now he is merely notorious among his peers.
Nevertheless, society tends to feel, if a suitable punishment is attached to a crime then it must be possible to believe either in deterrence or maybe, in some extent of ‘curing’ of the ill will and malice presumed to have led to the crime. No?
You feel society is entitled to be vindictive? heh “Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the guy on the street corner!
We have slipped onto the slippery slope from which there actually is no escape.
The future sliding inescapably toward Mankind, if it were applied to the kitten killer would pan out something like this: he would be publicly stripped and his genitals removed; then he would be flogged; then he would have many bones crushed and broken, small bones in the hands and feet, long bones in the arms and legs, facial and cranial bones; then he would be partially flayed; then his abdomen would be opened, allowing his viscera to slide out; then his tongue would be removed and one eye put out and; finally he would be infected with a fatal disease. Nobody would be permitted to leave the scene until his ultimate death was medically confirmed and compulsory global television coverage would not be interrupted by any commercial breaks.
It remains debatable whether this would make kittens safer but realistically, our above description omitted a very great deal of the horror which cannot be prevented from overwhelming Mankind.
What has this to do with the Voice War?
After five and a half thousand million people have died, some in the utmost indescribable agony and horror (you might pass quickly and easily?), the Voice will score a temporary victory. We are told, “Few will survive.” Our numbers merely presuppose the survival of one in ten of approximately seven billion. It’s a rough count. A ballpark calculation.
We are told even these, who must we think be forever chastened, will suffer the chains of Peace only one thousand years.
By then, we are told, technology will have surpassed mankind’s wildest dreams and next time they move from the War of the Voice to mere War, they won’t get it wrong again.
So Yes! We have two good wars left in us. This one, which will wipe out five and a half thousand million. And the one preceding the destruction of Earth as we know it.
Now let’s go back to the Voices.
You are one voice, whoever you are, wherever you are. The other voice remains the one over whom you had victory before even the Solar System was born. The voice against whom you war in Mortality hates you unimaginably and must forever. No amount of Reason will prevail against that implacable enemy of your eternal soul.
Each and every individual on earth is outnumbered personally by forces inimical to our souls. There is opposition in all things. Try as we might, we will continue to be torn by the vast array of angst, bitternesses, jealousies, vanities, loves and hates that make up this life we breath. So great is the battle, individually, for our own soul that we sacrifice humanity for the sake of our personal struggle.
Only in the last and final extremity do we perceive the greater realities which overwhelm us. Mankind has heard the phrases: The War To End All Wars; Peace In Our Time; Mutual Atomic Destruction. Or words to these effects down through the ages, when finally Mankind lifts it bloody muzzle toward the executioner.
We have been there.
This time there is no turning back.
It doesn’t matter now, who is hearing voices. “Five Minutes To Midnight” from Geert Wilders shows at least he sees the light. It’s glinting on the edge of the sword as it descends. We are sure our militant islamist pals will dig that!
When next the Voice speaks almost everybody will be gone.
Where is your voice? What is it saying?
Ultimately, regardless of how much blood is shed and how many are put to Death, this is forever the War of the Voices. God, Angels and These Witnesses take down every word you say.
rai@wenublog.com