Will the real Satan please stand up?

I have issues with the word "morality" because like every other happy word that we toss around politically (love, sin, faith, family, values, freedom, democracy, pro-life, pro-choice
etc etc) there tends to be a "right" side and a "wrong side" to it but those sides are always changing to suit whoever is in power at the time. Now that the neocons get to hang around for a few more years these words take on an even uglier taint. It bothers me because people get pushed then into this little mental filing cabinet which gets smaller and smaller. This means that fewer and fewer people are actually treated as human beings or even individuals. Instead they become groups. Threats. Others. OR they are us, we, ours and so on. Can you imagine what we would look like if we had every little identity marker tattooed on us? Yet we DO this mentally and we DO this often according to whatever our politics are. Here, I don't mean democrat and republican because I like to believe people can actually think beyond those stupid parameters.
I mean our real politics. Our body politics. Our religious politics. Our friendships and families. All of our relationships. All of the things that truly shape us.

Think about terror for example.
Which is more "terrorizing" a man fleeing a hailstorm of bullets with a child in his arms
or the military force firing those bullets indiscriminately?
A bulldozer mowing down houses or the people who throw stones at the bulldozer?
A man, bound hand and foot, with a bag over his head or the men (and women) standing around him, striking poses and laughing?
A child with a fist in the air or the decade of sanctions that starved his family to death and the cluster bombs that filled his playmates with shrapnel?

How about the word terrorist?
Who is the bigger terrorist? A single suicide bomber or a nation full of nuclear weapons
that spends more money on bolstering an already unbelievable arsenal than it does on food, healthcare, or any other "social" service?

Finally think about the word "justice"
How do YOU define that word? Chances are, your definition will vary according to all you've read, all you've heard about, all you've been taught/felt/experienced and your race, gender and class position in life will also shape this. So to me, when I think of the word moral and all of these words actually, I think about the irrationality of fear and hatred and how we always want a devil to make ourselves look good. We need that Satan to blame for the evil in the world and yet we never can seem to recognize the evil that masquarades as truth. Such as bombing hospitals, leaving babies without limbs, without families, without homes, without healthcare, without food or water. If evil can be such a variable thing, can one entity be to blame for it? Perhaps our thoughts are evil. Perhaps our actions are immoral. Perhaps, just maybe, living in gross over-abundance while others starve or die from lack of proper clothing, shelter and medicine, perhaps that is evil? How can you ever actually consider such a reality good? Or just? OR moral? peace!


"And sometimes, we all
Just lose sight
Of the pain that will guide us
From the dark into the light"--"Pray for Grace" Michael Franti/Spearhead