Forum Post: Humane Values

I've been enthusiastic about the Care that I see at the core of Occupy as a broad social movement, which seems to me has great unifying power to address the great disparity of wealth and opportunity in societies everywhere dominated by elite powers and political corruption. I see no reason why Occupy cannot continue to grow and gain momentum.

Everywhere, I observe this Care to be best characterized as a care for Humane Values, which stand in pretty stark distinction to the Profit motive of Corporatism, its very base commercialism, which is dishonest, and consumerism that has driven the expansion of markets across the globe and has led to the wage enslavement of Peoples, degredation of the environment, and concentration of wealth.

As a person raised in the christian tradition and versed in the metaphors of evil, I can find no better analogy to the spirit of the antichrist than the allegiance of political powers with the culture of wealth accumulation...together constituting what I can recognize as the False Prophet (politics) and Antichrist (mammon) respectively.

While I am not a literalist, and scarcely a christian by fundamental standards, I do think that humanity has long been aware of the abuses these Powers have always practiced upon humanity for our enslavement. Religion, also, falls under the aegis of False Prophet, as we observe how it has served the political elite through the ages and has wracked society with fear and superstition, dividing and conquering as demonically as any secular power, perhaps moreso.

Among the evils of American culture, these three together today can pretty clearly be seen to be the unholy alliance that has captured a wide swath of our population, and has degraded, debased public discourse, encouraging viceous conflicts and demonstrated that these cohorts, if they had their way, would exclude absolutely everyone (a majority) from the ranks of the 'blessed' and condemn all those who differ from them to a life of depredation, loss, poverty, and death...for some, a deathless death which they relish with a greedy kind of malice. This set of interests, of values, characterizes for me Amerika the ugly, an us against them viceousness that takes all of humanity as their battleground, a warlike brutality, against which stands most glaringly the concept of a God of Love, of Friendship, and of Peace.

Despite the differences of emphasis in the Occupy camps, in terms of topics for redress and methods to promote change, the unifying principle capable of the kind of staying power and justification of purpose that characterizes its values, at the core, appear to me as being Humane, and therefor on the side of truth and justice and mercy in the round. And while I would not promote an openly religious tenor for Occupiers, I hope that Occupy as a unifying movement for The People of the globe would adopt the principle among the many camps that: "If they are not against us, they are for us," using Humane Values as a yardstick to characterize alliance among them, abandoning all insignificant divisions among the camps to promote this realization they share at their core...this Care for the welfare of humanity, and thus demonstrate their allegiance to the best and the holy in our ages of Culture. These forces of evil in the world will then find that they are not fighting against mere men, but against God as well...God of Truth, God of Love...for it is hard to kick against the thorns...vox populi, vox dei est.