CHAPTER 6 - "Wolves Guarding Sheep"

Chapter 6 - WOLVES GUARDING SHEEP

“Character is Destiny.”

Heraclitus

Once upon a time, 15,000 years ago or so, there was a human being who lived as part of a herd of other human beings. The herd lived off the land as hunter/gatherers, surviving day to day on whatever they could fill their bellies with.

For some reason, and there are many theories on how this happened, the human became aware of her existence; aware that she was different than those around her, that she was a part of the earth but separate from the earth. She was aware of her thoughts and feelings and could begin to describe those feelings in different ways: language, pictures, sounds, songs.

She also became aware that this gift of conscious existence could be snuffed out at any moment. And for the first time in her life, she was afraid; not of dying, for death was a part of the herd’s daily existence. No, she was afraid of becoming non-existent; afraid that her entire life would hold no significance, afraid of being forgotten, of no longer being a part of her people’s thoughts.

This fear grew stronger as time passed. It gripped her mind and began to consume her.

She prayed to the mysterious gods of nature for relief from her fears, but the spirits seemed to turn a deaf ear.

Living day to day with no guarantee for tomorrow was dangerous; and the desolate plains, rife with predators and natural hazards, were no place to raise fragile infants. Relying on the whims and fickle moods of the nature gods was no longer good enough. She felt it was time to abandon these uncaring deities. The fear had to be quelled. But what solution existed to cure her dilemma? She had no clue.

One day while collecting berries, she happened upon a strange looking man who wore a robe of fine feathers and a head-dress that resembled a serpent. He introduced himself as something called a “priest” who lived with a herd of humans in a place they called a “village”. He invited her to visit.

She followed the priest and upon seeing the village, her eyes grew wide. She was nearly overcome with disbelief, never having imagined that any such place was possible.

The people living in the village had constructed walls to keep out predators, huts to keep the rain off their heads and protect their young. Instead of constantly being forced to follow the herds of wild animals, they had constructed pens and breeding grounds so that the animals couldn’t get away. They had planted vegetables and grains in certain places they called gardens and had access to them all year round. They were storing and saving food, not only for tomorrow but for weeks after that!

She knew in her heart that her prayers, long ignored by her old gods, had been answered by the priest. This new system, called civilization, would finally erase her fears, giving her the ability to stop depending on invisible spirits for her daily survival. This is what her herd needed; a means to take the future into their own hands. She begged the priest to share with her the fruit of his knowledge so that she could in turn give it to her mate, who could then begin to build them a village of their own.

And so, they did…

What the priest had failed to tell the woman was, as in all things, there was a price to be paid for this new way of living.

Where once her herd was free to do as they pleased with their day after their belly was full, now they were forced to work from sunup to sundown, building huts and fences, planting and harvesting, protecting their livestock from predators, constantly working to maintain and enlarge the things they had built. Many of their tribe, failing to do their fair share, suffered violence from their own tribe members for the very first time in their lives.

The priest sent one of his sons, who was also a priest, to the new village to make sure things were going as planned. The new priest promised them that, although they were more miserable now than they ever were in the past, happiness was just around the corner. In fact, happiness always seemed to be just around the next corner.

Soon, villages began to spring up all around. And although the woman now had all the things she had so coveted upon her visit to the original village, her fear of no longer existing had not diminished. If anything, it had grown stronger.

Uncontrollable voices asked horrifying questions inside her head, “What if the plains catch fire and burn down our village? What if a strange disease wipes our existence from the earth? What if the neighboring tribe decides to attack us all in our sleep?” She shared her fears with the priest who nodded his head in an understanding way.

The next day, the young priest gathered the tribe together and told them that the voices who spoke inside the woman’s head were voices from the gods. They were to heed the voices and address the woman’s fears by destroying the village that had brought theirs into existence. They could then use the land they gained from the defeated village and the people left alive could be used as slaves to work the land.

This plan would also allow the young priest to take the feathered robe and the serpent’s hood from his father, making their village the most powerful in the land.

Once this happened, they would no longer have to worry about anything.

Happiness was just around the corner. When the woman’s fears were spoken aloud, they spread like wildfire through the village. It was like a strange disease had taken hold of the people, infecting their minds with dread. They immediately made plans to attack the neighboring tribe in their sleep.

And so, they did…

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Fast forward this repeatable scenario throughout human history and you get… well… human history.

Human societies built on the foundation of fear and greed have literally wiped all other cultures off the face of the earth. Cultures based on love, sharing, mutual respect, trust… they no longer exist. They were murdered, betrayed, enslaved, and obliterated centuries ago by our ancestors.

And we today carry the genetics of the winners, we share their passions, their notions of right and wrong. To the victor go the spoils. That’s right, isn’t it?

The corrosive and rancid emotions of Fear and Greed are the most influential forces behind the actions of modern humanity. These two emotions have so permeated our minds, hearts and being, that we now barely even notice their existence. And if we do happen to notice, we simply take a pill to “fix” it.

We worship those who plunder, conquer, dominate, and destroy. Our heroes are generals, emperors, politicians, athletes, media figures and artists who often have clawed, fought, cheated, brutalized, and lied their way to the top, leaving behind a heap of broken lives and shattered dreams. We truly believe this is “normal” and “the way things should be”.

Let me give you a different perspective for a moment before I get on with my point.

“There was an anthropologist who had been studying the habits and culture of a remote

African tribe.

He had been working in the village for quite some time and the day before he was to return home, he put together a gift basket filled with delicious fruits from around the region and wrapped it in a ribbon. He placed the basket under a tree and then he gathered up the children in the village.

The man drew a line in the dirt, looked at the children, and said, “When I tell you to start, run to the tree and whoever gets there first will win the basket of fruit.”

When he told them to run, they all took each other’s hands and ran together to the tree. Then they sat together around the basket and enjoyed their treat as a group.

The anthropologist was shocked. He asked why they would all go together when one of them could have won all the fruit for themselves? A young girl looked up at him and said, “How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

That’s when all-American coach, Vince Lombardi stepped out from behind a yum-yum tree and screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU YAMMERING ABOUT, YOU STUPID, WEAK, LITTLE SNOWFLAKE??!!! NOW EVERYBODY’S GONNA LINE UP AGAIN AND I WANNA SEE BLOOD AND GUTS AND HAIR PULLING AND CROTCH-KICKING UNTIL ONE - AND I SAID ONE - CHILD CAN SHOW ME WHAT THEY’RE MADE OF! THE WINNER WILL THEN SIT AT THE TOP OF A PYRAMID MADE FROM THE BODIES OF THE REST OF YOU LOSERS AND THOROUGHLY ENJOY THE REWARDS OF BEING THE KING OF THE JUNGLE! NOW GET MOVING!!!”

“How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

Why don’t people with this attitude run for government office? Because they’d be backstabbed, assassinated, lied about, blackmailed, betrayed, and ruined by “winners”.

“How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

Well, our political leaders, aligned with the banks and big corporations are about to show us how that works.

This chapter is called “Wolves Guarding Sheep”. It’s based on the picture we often form in childhood from fairy tales. It’s an easy concept to understand. There’s only one reason a wolf would ever guard a sheep.

Now, I'm about to make some broad-brush, sweeping statements here, so I need to get a few things straight. I do not believe that wealth is evil. I do not believe we're in an ages-long struggle between the bourgeois and the proletariat as the communist manifesto decrees, and I don't believe that every single person in the top .1% are evil.

There are most likely some very good people at the top. It's just that there aren't enough anymore to change the negative tide currently washing this country into the gutter. We are currently in the "win-at-all-cost, morality doesn't matter, lying is the primary language, the next generation can get fu***ed" era, and the consequences of these daily choices from those in power are being seen around the globe.

So, in order to expedite the length of this chapter and the next, be ready for some intentionally broad strokes that are generally true but do hold some exceptions.

Here we go.

At the top of our human leadership pyramid are the wolves. Not the 1%, but the .1%. Do you see that little decimal point in front of the 1 there? That’s one-tenth of one percent. 1 dime out of a hundred-dollar bill. A very small fraction. That’s how many human leaders today; how many wolves there are, controlling the sheep.

But, rather than sheep, I like the picture of a different animal instead. Let me explain.

In days of old, the wealthy masters of humanity owned vast amounts of real estate along with luxurious mansions placed on top of that real estate. This alone set them apart from the rest of humanity.

But there was more, oh so much more, to their possessions. There were statues, artwork, furniture, and livestock, silver, gold, carriages, machinery… and slaves. All the things owned by wealthy landowners that were NOT real estate or mansions were termed “chattel”. It’s where we get the term “cattle”.

Cows were placed on the same level as human slaves; possessions to be used by the elite.

This thinking hasn’t changed over the centuries. Not one bit. The elite still view the dirty, squalid masses as chattel; those whose only value is to further the interest of the wolves; wolves who use the energy of the cattle to produce wealth and power, cattle that will be quickly eaten should the need or opportunity ever arise.

To the elite wolves of our human system, 99.9 % of us are cattle. Stupid beasts with little value, wrecking the planet with the methane we emit from our collective farts.

We’re good for dying in wars, churning out production to line the pockets of corporations, being herd-manipulated to charge an opposing group in order to pass certain laws that benefit the wolves, building roads and cell phones and such. And that’s about it. As soon as robots can take care of these issues, the wolves will dispose of the cattle without a second thought,

This is the nature of humans, and this is the world you live in. If you believe anything different, you are naïve and wrong. If you believe in a "good" party and "bad" party in American politics, you have been deceived. Wolves are good at that. They own controlling interest of both parties.

Of course, the wolves would never admit any of this. They’re not stupid. They don’t want the herd to stampede out of control. “We’re all equal here in the good ol U.S. of A”, they tell us every day from the TV outlets they own.

But take a look out your kitchen window. Does everyone seem equal in this country to you? Or is there a small group of people who seem to have much better lives than the rest of us?

I often hear elites today use a different term for the cattle they own/control. They speak of “Human Capital”. That’s a great term, isn’t it? It even sounds like Human Cattle to me. I think that might be what they’re actually saying, we just have a tendency to hear what we want to hear.

So, what does the system the wolves set up today look like? Well, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, and the boys set up a political system where all men (but not women, Indians or slaves) were created equal. That put a kink in the wolves’ plans for a minute.

The system was set up so that wolves were watching wolves who were watching wolves. Equal and separate powers guarding against abuse for the welfare of the cattle.

It worked for a while… somewhat. But cattle by nature are careless and stupid. Rather than taking an active part in preserving their freedom, they’d rather spend the day munching hay, drinking beer, and watching the World Series of Ping Pong.

So, the wolves used their money to secretly buy a few politicians so they could create laws and tax codes that made it easier for the wolves to take money away from the cattle. That extra money allowed them to buy more politicians who enacted more laws and tax advantages which made them more money, which eventually enabled them to buy all the political parties, all the news media, all the healthcare, all the food, all the technology, all the military… and here we are today.

Most politicians don’t even write laws anymore. Corporate attorneys do. The politicians simply put the rubber stamp on it, get it passed with a secret vote at midnight and Big Brother grows ever richer at the expense of the cattle… now legally.

“How can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”

The wolves live in gated conclaves in DC, New York, and California; far away from the riff raff. They don’t see the average people that their policies have ruined, don’t listen to their stories of addiction, poverty and despair, don’t care about the once wealthy and happy society they’ve pillaged. The only people they see or deal with are wolves just like them. That’s how they stay happy. That, along with copious amounts of pills and booze.

So, what does all this mean for me and you in terms of preparation? Not much I'm afraid. I just need you to understand the human condition so you can see the danger of the other missiles as a stark reality. Not only are the people in power not helping to divert these missiles, some of them WANT our economy and lives in shambles.

A poor cow that owns nothing and has no power is a cow that needs the wolves to be in absolute control of their lives. And the wolves are more than happy to take on that role... because they care... so much.

In my opinion, it’s just a matter of years before the sands of time run out on the human race. Our foundation is rotten at its core. Every civilization built on Fear and Greed is doomed to collapse in on itself. We manifest the the very things we fear. We can’t kill or steal or lie our way out of a broken mental health issue that rules over our collective psyche.

I believe the best we can hope for is that some of us survive the final conflict waged between competing wolf clans, arise from the rubble and rebuild a better, safer world. A world not based on the two forces that currently spell our imminent doom.

But even if we do happen to crawl out of the rubble and create a future Utopia based on peace and love and sharing… what happens if some neighboring tribe decides to attack us in our sleep?

My only light at the end of this tunnel appears in the title of chapter 7…

NEXT WEEK

CHAPTER 7

"COWS WITH GUNS"