A Memorial to Courage

I propose a day of remembrance. Let’s make today, June 1st, a memorial. Everyone take one minute, just one minute, of their day just once all year and think of the departed. Let men and women and children, the world over, take the time on this June 1st to pay respects to our absent friends.

I propose that June 1st be the memorial for ourselves. From now on, on June 1st, we will mourn the death of the human spirit. All I ask is that you take one moment to remember courage, valour, liberty and meaning because we have killed these things. There exists not a human spirit today and we have forgone all courage, cast all valour out the door and sacrificed our liberty to the uncaring gods of nationalism.

Once upon a time people lived with meaning and gave their life for what was important. Men paid in sweat and blood for ideas like freedom but not just for themselves. They wanted freedom for their families, their neighbours, their enemies, their children and for generations not yet to come. How many battles have been fought for freedom? Battles fought by slaves and subjects and so called “free men” in their name.

And now we have given it up. We have put aside all meaning to our lives and we’ve replaced it with twenty-hour professional wrestling and cheap beer. We’ve sacrificed one liberty after the other and in return we have been made slaves once again and then we’re told we’re not slaves. Our slave masters give us fast food and fast cars and tell us we are being rewarded.

It’s a simple sleight of hand. The magician waves his left hand and slides the coin up his right sleeve. We’re dazzled, amazed, enslaved. And we cheer for it.

So we are slaves. We no longer have a voice, a will, a free thought because it is all fed to us. We’re stripped of meaning in our lives, stripped of courage and stripped of humanity. All while we’re watching our slave master wave his left hand. Now we sit with our $2 cheese burger in front of our cable TV and watch the world go by and never once say a word.

Not a night goes by where we don’t see the latest reports on the western world’s continuous efforts of genocide on the east. We may not like it but who are we to question out slave master’s will? Or maybe we will and we’ll start a petition. Don’t you love signing petitions? Flick your wrist a few times, pen in hand, and you’ve made a difference.

A self-deluded, lazy attempt at escaping your shackles and no more than laughable. But it’s safe and you won’t get in any trouble from the slave master and you won’t need to miss out on seeing the next episode of LOST.

That is why I propose we all take a minute of silence today. On June 1st let us take a moment to remember what it meant to be people and say good-bye to what it was that made us human. Each and every one of us has murdered it.

Lest we forget.