ezrael

I found this a few days ago and it just seemed kinda apt, as well as reminding me of the late, great Bill Hicks.

full version here www.ezrael.org...


March 12, 2003


Is it just me, or is everyone insane?

I mean, what. The. F*ck. Is. Wrong. With. Us? That's right, I'm so f*cking confused I'm actually resorting to swearing and Captain Kirk diction. Seriously, we're all insane. I've always been of the opinion that humanity as a whole is an unfinished project...a simian with barely enough intellect to put our opposable thumbs to any use, apes who confuse our limited sensory abilities and our hastily cobbled-together view of the world for reality, just another step along the evolutionary path...but lately I'm starting to really believe that we're played out, that we developed certain attributes too soon without coming up with counterbalancing systems to hold us in equilibrium. For starters, the ability to see the other person's point of view.

I mean, I could spend the rest of my life trying to point out how rarely things are ever simple and how when they are, it's usually because the observer is bereft of perceived alternatives. I could break out the Koestler and try and discuss the benefits of bisociation. I could talk about how Arab teenagers who blow up buses and Israeli security agents use the same goddamn terminology "Kill one of us and we will kill ten of you." What happens then? That means I need to kill a hundred of you to balance it out? Sh1t, that just kills a thousand of mine. Which means ten thousand of yours need to die, I guess. As though justice has a balance sheet.

I accept now that someone is eventually going to kill me. Perhaps I'll be killed because I'm an American Warmonger, or perhaps because I'm insufficiently Patriotic. Maybe I'll be shot outside a Planned Parenthood somewhere, who knows why I'll be there. Maybe I'll be killed by some nationwide equivalent of the Mississippi Soverignity Comission or maybe I'll be run over by people rushing to deface a 9/11 memorial. Sooner or later, I'll be killed. Who knows why anymore? Someone will kill me to shut me up, or because of the way I look or my ancestry or an accident of birth...maybe I'll be killed because I like the wrong kind of music. Maybe I'll be killed because I'm in the wrong #ing building and someone's decided to send a message by blowing it up. There are plenty of potential Timothy McVeighs out there, plenty of angry young men who want to make the world a better place by killing the people they don't agree with, whether they're in Al Qaeda or the IRA or some Militia or another. Some of those men grow into leaders. They then send angry young men to die in their place. Thus the world spins onward. I keep expecting to hear that Tom Ridge has evidence linking Richard Jewell to everything. I mean, because the FBI is never wrong or anything, it's not like the idea of an overarching bureacracy run by the same guys who tried to get Martin Luther King to commit suicide should make you uncomfortable.

I've come to the conclusion that there are a lot of as$holes the world over who want everyone who doesn't agree with them dead or silent. That there are a lot of people honestly terrified by these people, who want to be protected from them, and who are only seeing the ones on the other side of whatever divides exist in their minds and not the ones on their own side. I also think that it's possible to have multiple opinions on these issues...for instance, to think that American policy in Iraq is creating multiple problems for us further down the road without thinking that Saddam Hussein is a cuddly kitten we should all crush to our bosom...well, okay, we can crush him to our bosom as long as he gets no air whilke he's there, I'll concede to that one...and, for that matter, to think that murdering people to make a point is f*cking hideous no matter who does it. When Bono can win over Jesse Helms to his way of thinking, maybe it's not all lost, but it's far from all f*cking won either. As the singer put it in an article recently, when people are dying because they can't get clean water, they can't get medicine, they can't get food and they know you have these things, it doesn't take much to get them to hate you. I've already said it to friends and I'll say it again, when a f*cking rock star makes that much sense we're f*cked.

I realize I'm just writing in my glorified f*cking diary here, call it what you want. A blog, a weblog, a journal, Uncle Matty's Documented Anti-Sanity Slide Down The Rabbithole, whatever works for you. So the conceit that I'm writing to the whole human race is patently absurd. Still, since I'm not going to get my magic markers out and walk down the street with a placard marked We are all human together I guess this is the best I can do. So I might as well pretend I'm talking to the whole bunch of us at once, and if you're offended at being lumped in with the rest of us, I can only apologize. Here goes.

The person you hate and fear is your brother. The person you decry for callousness and warmongering is your sister. The person you offend, the person who offends you, the person who holds a differing opinion than you about God or morality or the proper course of nations or the spread of justice or the use of force...that person is of one flesh with you. The person of a different culture or religion, the person who was born in another land with different customs and a different culture, the person who would see you dead rather than hear your point of view, the person you would lock up for treason because they protested the government, the person sitting across from you as you look at a terminal flickering these thoughts at you is your love and your salvation and the only hope you have in all the cold uncaring universe of finding someone else who can possibly understand what it is like to be what you are.

I don't care what your politics are. I don't care if you think I'm a fool for saying so. I don't care if you plan my death. You are mine. Everything that is in me is in you, seeded, we carry the same plan in our blood and our bones and you can kill me and it will not change it. Every death diminishes us. Every loss is our loss. Every starving baby, every sickly man in a tenement, every elderly woman pinned under wreckage screaming to the sky to save her, every child-man in a uniform preparing to kill or die, every arrogant jackass at a computer terminal insulting someone else for daring to be different, every person feeling the lash for expressing a thought, every mother seeking to make the world better for her offspring, everyone just trying to make it another day in this chaos we call life is one of us. It is not wrong to fear. It is not wrong to doubt. It is not wrong to not know what to do. It is not wrong to be human. It's what we are. I refuse to believe that being human is a crime or a sin, that knowing fear or rage or pain are immoral, that being unfinished and not knowing everything is anything we should be ashamed of. What we should be ashamed of, if we have to be ashamed at all, is letting ourselves forget this essential connection and squabbling like children in this ever-expanding miracle we have been privileged to experience.

Stop telling each other to shut up and listen. Listen to the fear and pain and outrage on the other side, whatever side that is. Try and see how they see. It's a huge, bloody, messy, sh1t-encrusted shock of a world, with pain and death and monsters in the family, men and women who do horrors and declare themselves righteous. I blew up that church and those four litle black girls to protect my way of life. I killed those teenagers in that car to protect my children. I set off the Ryder Truck full of explosives to strike a blow for freedom. I killed those women because my neighbor's dog told me to. We had to kill those people because Charlie told us to. I beat the child so that it would learn to fear God. These things and many other atrocities, from the slaughter of millions of Jews, Gypsies, Mental Patients and other undesirables in World War II to the genocide of the Natives in the Americas, all the way back to the utter destruction of Carthage and beyond...these have always been with us. Perhaps they always will be. There may be no answer to the question am I my brother's keeper that can, or will, satisfy us all. It doesn't mean we shouldn't ask.

I'm more or less out of rant. To sum up: whatever you believe, you're probably wrong. This includes me, too. We're probably wrong. If nothing else, maybe we could all be polite about it. Okay, not polite. Sh1t, when am I polite? Civil? Is that the word? Okay, how about maybe we could stop spitting on each other. That's the keeper.


Posted by Ezrael at 07:53 AM

Okay....first of all........CALM DOWN!!!!!!

I agree with you that this world has gone upside down in the last few months and i can't blame you for being really pissed off at the moment!!!

I get your point about your post...correct me if i am wrong but you think that the ways of the leaders reflect on the ways of the people?
Agree with you there!!!

I know that Saddam and Bin Laden have brought so much death and destruction to this world but if the war stops at one man...then another sick a$$hole will take over!!!

I say that the UN have tried to reason with them, tried to help them, but the men have said: sod you..we'll kill you all!!!

As i am writing this i have a song by Sting in my head, you know, 'Russians'...just change some words to fit the recent events and i have my war song!!

I'm gibbering now, do to another doubler, 20 hours, at work and i'm practically running on fumes!

If anyone else has comments..then post here!!

in case you didn't noticed, arc didn't wrote that aritcle, but someone fot this website does; www.ezrael.org... ,what a horrible website btw (no webdesign skills at all...)

I think it was a good read, but as he already said, it was all rant. Just another reporter sharing his opinion...

People like Saddam must be stopped, everybody knows he has WMD...wars are horrible, but sometimes need to be done. There is no way Saddam will give up all his bio/chemical weapons. He cannot be trusted (like our own politicians ).

THANKS NANS!!!

That has been driving me nuts!!

Heard that name from somewhere and it was annoying me!!

Merci Beaucoup!!

I always thought Ezrael was Gargamel's cat on the Smurfs. I know you all remember the little Blue Smurfs, a cartoon made in the 80's where the little blue people lived in mushrooms.

_____________________________________________
Be Cool
K_OS

I remember them!!

I still remember the Carebears?

Damn...reputation gone again!!

Carebears are making a comeback. Most of the toys and cartoons of my generation are back on shelves again.

_____________________________________________
Be Cool
K_OS

Great stuff arc, thanks for that.
Raised my spirit a little, I was starting to sink.
Its always good to be reminded you're not alone in your thoughts.

I can stand Carebears and Smurfs but if anyone decides to bring back She Ra or Dangermouse back i would do some harm to them!!!

Still remember the wallpaper, curtains and bedcovers i had of the carebears..strangeheart was my fave!!!

Hey kegs.....how is it going?

Not great. Think I'll go for a quick sharp dip in the sea, that'll sort me out!

na, feck that actually,

LOUD MUSIC DOES IT EVERY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!

Ezrael means help of God in Hebrew. It's a different angel.

And my web design skills are even worse than you think...that's a template I borrowed.

lol

well hello there

I really hope you don't mind me posting what you wrote up on here - just thought it summed up far too much that was relevant both in terms of the current situation, the human condition and the way some of us behave on here.

Any problems and I apologise whole heartedly

I post this stuff to a website that people occassionally read, so it would be pretty damn stupid of me not to know that it gets reposted. A lot of the time it gets reposted for the express purpose of telling me what a dumbass I am, so can't find fault in your much gentler treatment. And any comparison to Hicks is a good one.

Originally posted by RavenStar
I remember them!!
I still remember the Carebears?
Damn...reputation gone again!!

I remember Mighty Mouse...I remember the band Golden Earring (still have their first album, Moontan)...I remember the Golden Age superheros in DC Comics & I still remember the first appearance of Spiderman...I still have the first issue of The Fantastic Four...I remember when Kennedy was shot...The music that radio stations play as "oldies" is the music I grew up with...I remember Woodstock (although I was only about 5 years too young to have been able to attend)...I watched the first moon landing on the TV news...

...D@mn, I feel old...If I turn up my hearing aid, I can hear my joints creak...



[Edited on 18-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

Originally posted by RavenStar
THANKS NANS!!!

That has been driving me nuts!!

Heard that name from somewhere and it was annoying me!!

Merci Beaucoup!!

DEATH must have an angel, if not who will carry your soul after your life ?

Originally posted by Ezrael
Ezrael means help of God in Hebrew. It's a different angel.

And my web design skills are even worse than you think...that's a template I borrowed.

The pictures the web site look like the CABALISTIC plans of the skiies, Are your initiate to the CABALLAH ?
Are your JEWISH or ISREALIAN ?

I've always thought as Ezrael as one of the 4 horsemen?

Am i wrong?

There is death, pestilence, hunger and the other one i can never remember?

Anyone know?

Originally posted by RavenStar
I've always thought as Ezrael as one of the 4 horsemen?

Am i wrong?

There is death, pestilence, hunger and the other one i can never remember?

Anyone know?

It's War of course, you know.. the one that is about to raise its ugly head in a day or so.