Us and Them

I was raised around them so I never feared them.

This anger and fear that permeates everything around me is foreign to me and I don’t understand it.

I feel it, and I fully appreciate how easy it is to fall into it. I find myself caught up in it sometimes.

The feeling of dread and the instinct to run or fight. Because of my youth and my training, I’m more inclined to fight than to run. Because I was raised by them, the fear feels wrong and I stop myself.

This fear is wrong.

This isn’t the result of anything they have done to me or to anyone really.

This is the result of others spreading hatred and fear.

I don’t know why. It makes no true sense to me. Maybe if I could see their true reasons it would seem something like right.

The reasons they give sound hollow and false when you take away the fear that is so rampant right now.

How can they be the cause of anything that is happening in my life? How can they be dangerous when we’re the ones with the weapons of destruction?
They have ideas that are different from ours. They look different than we do.

How does that make them dangerous to us?

I have seen multiple armed enforcers take down a single opponent. The opponent wasn’t resisting. They couldn’t. They had been restrained and were down.

Yet they died. Whatever they had done, they were captured. They were down. Multiple enforcers had them restrained and under control.

Yet they died. They were shot and killed.

Why?

How were they a threat, lying on the ground with enforcers on top of them?

Holding them down.

There were no others coming to assist. There wasn’t any reaction at all from the others that witnessed it.

Everyone was afraid.

It’s not safe for any of Us or Them to speak out or object.

We see it too often. They are taken down and can be killed on a whim. A suggestion of a threat, whether real or not, is justification for execution.

Make no mistake that is exactly what it is. Execution. Murder. But the enforcers don’t have the same rules as other citizens do.

We all know this. We, for some reason accept it. I don’t understand that.

The Fear covers everything. We’re afraid of Them. We’re afraid of the enforcers. We’re afraid of that tiny voice within us that screams ‘This is WRONG! DO SOMETHING!!’

Especially that tiny voice. I think that is the thing we fear the most.

What separates us from Them? Colour, shape, location, gender, ideas.
Ahhhh, there it is!! The true source of the fear!!

We don’t really understand WHY They are different or dangerous. But the Authority has said so, and the enforcers obey the Authority.

Without truly understanding why the Authority decides these things we can’t be sure that we and our loved ones won’t become Them.

We’ve seen what happens to Them, and we will do pretty much anything to not be Them.

We are part of the Us, and that means we are safe. The Enforcers don’t bother Us, they only protect us from Them.

Though we’re still not sure why we need to be protected from Them. Again, that little voice cries out.

It’s funny, no matter what the Authority does, so many of us have that that little voice, and in time the voice becomes a siren that none of us can ignore.
Then we realize, eventually, that we are more and stronger than the Authority and it needs us much more than we need it.

Because, truly, without Them to protect us from what purpose does the Authority serve??

At the core of the matter, we support the Authority so that it will protect us from Them.

The Enforcers are an arm of the Authority, and their sole purpose is to prohibit Them from effecting Us.

This seems all very confusing, and I think effort is made to create that illusion.
Reality is this; it’s not complicated or confusing. It’s really very simple.

We willing support a system that is designed to suppress us. To keep us controlled and docile. To obey and not question.

There’s the fear. To question and not obey is to become Them.

I grew up around Them. I don’t look like them, so I am accepted as one of Us.

But I don’t fear them, and I won’t.

Having seen through this lie, I no longer trust the Authority. I know it will say what it needs to keep ‘order’. Really what it’s saying is that it wants to keep the Power.  That power comes from the citizens, Authority knows that but we seem to have forgotten.

Look into the eyes of one of Them. They are US, and We are Them.

When Them is killed, part of Us dies. When we stand back and allow one of the Them to be injured, We bleed.

When ANY child cries, we are all crushed.

There is no Us and Them. We fear things outside of ourselves that are reflections of what’s inside us.

We don’t fear Them, we fear the part of Them that we see in ourselves. We fear that we could so easily be Them. Deep down.

Stop and think.

Who does this divisiveness serve?

It certainly doesn’t promote harmony, or peace.

What purpose does it serve? Why does it exist? How many faces of the Authority speak of peace and justice and encourage everyone to get along?

So long as they are US and not Them.

Please, look into yourself and see the Them within.

I don’t fear Them, I will not fear Us.

I refuse to play this game anymore. It makes no sense.

When I look into your eyes I see no difference between you and me. I see a soul that is wearing a different meat suit. I see a fellow traveler that is trying to figure out the rules to this game.  Rules that seem arbitrary and change depending on whom they serve in the moment.

It seems like madness, an insane game like Russian Roulette.

I won’t play that game anymore. I don’t know what other game there is and that that might be the most frightening thing of all.


I’m willing to look for a new one, are you willing to come with me?