Instinct for survival is genetically coded in our DNA, and it’s likely few, if any of us, would be here without it. Until the advent of agriculture some 12,000 years ago, humans were foraging and scavenging hunters while population growth, was and still is, automatically limited by the amount of resources in any geographic area. This inevitably brought competition between ancient clans and tribes as populations grew. The competitive spirit is no doubt tied to our survival instincts which seek advantages for continuing our bloodline into the future. As the population grew in ancient times, it would have been natural for humans to desire being part of a large and growing powerful tribe, for acquiring and protecting whatever resources were within reach and control of the tribal range. And so it was, ancient tribes competed against each other and to the victors went the spoils of war…
As tribes grew and continuously controlled larger areas of geography and resources, eventually empires were born with a growing number of people living within the ever increasing domain. Undoubtedly today we have more than just a kinship with the ancient psyche, as we seek conquest and control over our destiny in the very same way. As humans in the modern age, many are fascinated by what the ancient peoples accomplished, extolling the ingenuity evident in their evolving technologies and implements of war. Though, simultaneously, we view them as primitive while in the quest for survival they employed brutal savagery and crude technologies relative to our own. With human competitiveness, and the real threat of being annihilated by another tribe or empire, it’s easy to understand the ancients had no choice but to defend or be aggressive warriors. So the multi-faceted human, from one side, formed societies of mutually beneficial symbiotic natures – where the members helped each other, and even flourished in times of plenty. While directly opposed to the spirit of mutual beneficiaries, was the necessity to vanquish others for the purposes of retaining and acquiring resources – the same as we see today with stronger countries preying on weaker, comparatively defenseless people.
Inside the ancient societies, rules and common practices evolved into laws for the purpose of maintaining social order and congruity toward the common good. But competitive instincts could not be denied and compelled humans to seek advantages over those within their own societies. The reality is, some did contribute more through their ability to provide greater amounts of food or useful items, or by slaying more enemies among various other tasks – these differences automatically put a relatively greater or lesser true value on each member of the tribe. Within tribes, groups of hunters, foragers, farmers, warriors etc., worked and bonded together, as the tribes grew, more groups and subgroups formed in overlapping complexity, enhancing deeper stratifications in the social structure. The larger a tribe grew, the more politics came into play, and exaggerated values were being arbitrarily applied to certain individuals – much like now with tax money being collected by governments and redistributed, opening the door for corruption among those with the power to enrich themselves at the expense of the overall society. These distortions of a person’s value and ensuing rewards or lack thereof, would have occurred then as now, due to familial ties, along with political associations through friendships, professions, ideologies or potentially any other commonality. This is not to say ancient people lived without compassion for weaker members of the tribe, or without compassion for weaker tribes. It’s certain within tribes, some had strong emotional bonds as their lives depended on each other’s health and well-being. They also had treaties with other tribes respecting certain geographic boundaries, and trade between tribes could benefit both – as it does today.
In some aspects, primitive life may have been superior to our modern lives, yielding a richer life experience. Many today, desire, and try to achieve independence. While the ancients being much more dependent on each other would’ve necessarily developed more appreciative and closer personal bonds – much like a group of soldiers, where survival depends on the group intuitively working together – with life and death on the line they are instinctively more vibrantly alive, literally giving life, and each other all they have – they do it not for themselves, but for each other and the group’s survival. Today, we have options to easily replace an unsatisfactory service or person with an alternative provider. And contrary to being dependent primarily on people, we depend on huge impersonal corporations which, due to politics, sometimes we’re compelled by law or necessity to patronize. The corporations all wear a smile, but it’s phony. It only cares about controlling politics and law for the sake of its own financial health, while feeling and caring nothing for the sake or health of people. The reality of working in and patronizing these huge inhuman entities creates modern day human zombies, who, sensing corporations have more control over their personal destiny than themselves, are abject subjects of the corporate-political order; and hence, they emotionally detach from certain aspects of their corporate-fascism existence.
The only meaningful difference between “modern civilized” man and ancient people is our technology, with nothing different concerning the make-up of today’s humans when compared to those of 6000 years ago. Our technology actually started in ancient times and has been a continuous progression of advances to this day. The average human is no more intelligent today than the ancients were, but thanks to their lead, humans now have more knowledge and technologies to build on when arriving on planet earth. Although it’s common for modern humans to believe we’re superior, different, or more civilized in some ways, the truth is we’re absolutely not. We have the same adaptability for learning and acclimating to social norms and would have fit right in if born 6000 years ago – just as they, having the same adaptability, would fit right in if born today. And judging by how humans do adapt to the existing social order, while looking at the relative barbarity of our modern day actions compared to the ancients, it becomes apparent that we really have no major differences, if any at all.
Barbarity committed by the world’s self-proclaimed beacon of freedom, justice and democracy, the USA, is especially evident when we start talking about birth defects caused by chemical weapons in Vietnam, and radioactive weapons used since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Long before Iraq, we unnecessarily dropped the atom bomb on 1945 Hiroshima, killing 200,000 when all was said and done. Use of these weapons caused slow torturous deaths occurring over periods of weeks, months or years – as well as causing birth defects that can occur decades after the fact. These atrocities committed by modern “civilized” humans are much more horrendous given their magnitude and longevity – more so than anything the ancients ever even thought possible. That’s not to say ancient people wouldn’t have used today’s weapons if they had been available – some among them undoubtedly would have loved the thought of nuking someone, every bit as much as those who love the thought today.
A human social hierarchy almost always, if not always, guarantees humans will be preyed on, or exploited in some way(s). Of course, if the prey doesn’t perceive it as exploitation, it could actually be mutually beneficial to both, even if one benefits disproportionately more. There are several reasons why anyone may not think about the social-political hierarchy today, with culture and social indoctrination being primary among those reasons, while most people are natural followers, not to mention they don’t have the power to personally effect change; and some wouldn’t want change simply because they’re happy at their station serving those above while being served by those below. Power can also be interpreted as resisting the temptation to abuse it, and very few, if any,0 humans can consistently resist all temptations. Many seek power specifically so they can abuse or exploit others through distortions of truth, or other psychologically and physically imposing means. So power, by itself, where humans are concerned can be benevolent, malevolent or neutral and is simply having the ability to use it, abuse it, or not use it, if a person, group or country so chooses.
When it comes to power and taking human life, it has always been considered heroic to kill in times of war. While in one’s own society, killing could bring the death penalty. In some cases, due to politics, the penalty for killing within one’s ancient society would have depended on the status of the parties involved – just as it does today. The ancient king’s son would have likely gotten away with a crime others would have been executed for. And if one was on good terms with the king, he too, would have been more likely to be spared concerning particular crimes. This distorted value of personal worth designated to a select or opportunistic few, gave advantages to some that others simply had no chance of realizing. These double standards undeniably exist today when people escape justice due to wealth or political status. And, of course, if you’re the king of the world, it’s completely at your discretion to use remote controlled drones with impunity for killing anyone in the vicinity of wherever your bombs may fall – just as Barack Obama does today. And with enough political power, as we’ve been witness to, the present and prior kings of the empire have a number of less powerful nations being run by patronizing sycophants, who either support the empire’s actions directly or by looking the other way. To date, no real threat has called out President Obama or his predecessor for their crimes committed – no matter how unlawful and predicated on lies they’ve been. And we do know our modern kings are merely figureheads, acting on behalf of the world’s most powerful corporate and financial elites. If the powerful corporate oligarchs disapproved, and thought these policies were against their best interests, past and present US invasions with drone warfare wouldn’t be occurring with the same ease and frequency. But not to worry for that very reason, because those powerful elites will instruct the mass media to portray the King’s atrocities as something other than what they are – even if a sizable percent of drone kills are civilians, the mass media will find a way to downplay those crimes and may not mention them at all.
WWII was the most destructive and far reaching period of carnage in human history with nearly fifty million killed in total. Following WWII the US sought help and guidance from the pool of Nazi geniuses available for hire – and the way things are looking, it’s not a stretch to say the US is approaching something akin to the Nazi model. The US power structure sacrificing citizens as pawns to promote their personal agenda is exemplified in the CIA’s cocaine Contra affair. This story broke in the mid 1980’s by the late Gary Webb, who was ultimately a victim of these conspiratory crimes. The CIA had been instrumental in bringing tons of cocaine and crack cocaine, into the US on airfields they themselves used. This meant the CIA was creating drug addictions that US citizens would kill and die to satisfy, not to mention the lucrative profits that were being made. Thousands were incarcerated with some still in prison today. Sadly, some of us remember when the press ran stories of crack babies born addicted to cocaine. And sadly again, many Americans blamed the victims of these crimes, many of whom were African-Americans, while the criminals who made much of this possible escaped justice with help from our mass media. To accommodate Reagan’s CIA, the press intentionally discredited Webb’s factual story in the 1980’s, and later in the 90’s when it was revived with fresh evidence – while as part of the process they ruined Webb’s career. Some don’t believe suicide took Webb’s life in 2004, as he was intending to tally up and expose all the damage done. You can see the depiction of one American who gave his all, with Gary Webb and his ordeal portrayed in the movie Kill the Messenger. Because of the movie, the press is again trying to cover their tracks of guilt with another campaign to discredit Webb and his facts. Back when it all happened, the US Congress had voted against funding the Contras. And to bypass Congress, a percentage of those illegal cocaine proceeds were being used to fund Reagan’s beloved Contras, who formed death squads and brutally seized control over Central American countries. Reagan and fellow ideologues had been fearful that democratically voted in socialism, if left alone in Central America, would ultimately threaten American corporate profits. Ultimately one or more persons in the US government decided it was better to illegally subvert the law and democracy, at home and in Central America, while leaving a trail of dead, incarcerated and disabled behind…
On the US domestic home front, citizens have been witnessing lawless police killing unarmed people with impunity for years. There are an estimated 500 to 1000 civilians killed by police every year since September 11, 2001, with a large number having been unarmed and not posing a serious threat. And we see the police defending their own, equipped with “surplus” military machinery and battle gear; this is arguably tax-payer funded welfare of over 5 billion for the corporate-run military industrial complex which ultimately profited. There is the possibility they’ll put that surplus to use if widespread civil unrest should occur; and the US government also has a back-up plan if local and state police forces prove inadequate. With the NSA domestically spying, along with the Minerva Initiative, and (NDAA) 1540, US citizens can be now be “detained” indefinitely or executed without trial, and the US tax-payer funded military can now “legally” be used against those tax-payers if deemed necessary. The fact is, in a police-state, the remedy for police atrocities is more and stronger police actions.
There have always been individuals, unruly mobs, governments, or governing religions among others, who in essence are “privileged” with self-aggrandizing power to deceive and kill while never being held accountable. All of this takes place today with the US government and network mass media, at times conspiring as accomplices. These realities, verses what the public is led to believe, make it all appear the government and media are afraid of the truth, which they are, but they’re well compensated when their corporate paymasters make hefty campaign contributions and purchase lucrative advertising space from the media networks – the triad of US power – all complicit, and afraid of the truth being widely understood as the manipulative and destructive forces they inevitably are.
If judged by the root cause and end results of these US government actions, it becomes apparent the USA is essentially being ruled by a self-perpetuating subculture, correctly defined as psychopathic in nature. Of course,- psychopathic is merely a word describing characteristic behaviors resulting from the brain not functioning normally – making some resulting actions seem inhuman to normal human beings. We are talking about unjustified killing, murder, incarceration and the maiming of millions of innocent human beings – at home and abroad when totaled up over recent decades – all criminal offenses under U.S. and international law. The ancients couldn’t have been more devious or less concerned about others than the people participating in these crimes today. Though all who participate in this ongoing and unseemly reality are not psychopaths; but with the possibility of starting WWIII, their instincts and human natures to secure their own future and comfort at the expense of others, are collectively putting the entire world’s population in jeopardy – including themselves and their own progeny.
As individuals and societies, if humans were able to follow the rule of law, we could effectively make adjustments to achieve equality of justice and freedom. But because we’re human animals, our instincts naturally lean toward jungle law. As to whether or not man can maintain a truly civilized and overall law abiding democratic society is questionable at this time. The factual evidence and current realities are telling us any respite from jungle law is short-lived at best. This is undeniable, as the US figureheads currently act in concert with other forces to impose on people, domestic and foreign, around the globe – at the behest of corporate oligarchs. It’s only a matter of time before the majority of US citizens understand how they’re being manipulated against their own best interests and that of the entire world – a necessary sacrifice for corporate-world-fascism. Eventually the exploited will rebel; it’s instinct and human nature to seek control of one’s own destiny – that is what our US democracy and Constitution are supposed to be all about – freedom, without taking someone else’s freedom, or entire life away.